Business Leaders Will Call Strike Participants to “Civil and Penal Account”

Five leading economic organizations including the Korea Employers Federation, the Federation of Korean Industries, the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Korea International Trade Association, and the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business strongly called on to stop the general strike scheduled for October 6 and 12, stating that situations would be worse if labor communities took a union worker’s suicide by burning himself as an opportunity to go on strike, crying for the abolition of damage suits and provisional attachment.

The five leading economic organizations held an emergency meeting for vice chairman at the Lotte Hotel in downtown Seoul and insisted this through the statement, “business circles’ opinion on the recent incident of a union worker’s death by burning himself.”

In connection with this, the Korea Employers Federation served each work sites with a “guiding directive” in which participants in general strikes will be called to account and urged to comply with a “no work, no pay” policy.

“Damage suits and provisional attachment are deformed and condemned as an oppressive means to legal labor activities even though these means are minimum self-rescuing measures to counter the unions’ illegal activities,” said the five leading economic organizations through the statement, adding, “It is necessary to think whether these activities to admire workers’ death and suicide burning will lead another tragic incident.”

“Government measures to restrict damage suit and provisional attachment system should be reconsidered as they could stimulate unions’ illegal collective actions,” the leading economic organizations also said.

smhong@donga.com