KCTU Executives Resign En Masse

Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) executives, including chairman Lee Su-ho, which have been in crisis due to its leadership’s corruption, resigned en masse yesterday.

Since KCTU’s hard-liners appear to be taking the lead in handling tasks until the selection of a new chairman, concerns are being raised that the labor union umbrella group will clash with the government and management over a stack of labor related pending bills, including a bill on the prevention of irregular workers.

The labor umbrella held a meeting at its office at Yeongdeungpo-2-ga, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, on the morning of that day, and decided that its executives, including chairman Lee, four vice chairmen, and secretary-general, would resign en bloc and that it would set up an emergency measures committee to lead strikes in the second half of this year.

The emergency measure committee will be established in a central executive committee meeting attended by the labor umbrella secretariat’s executives, its affiliated members’ chairmen and its branch headquarters’ chairmen.

The chairman post of the emergency measure committee is likely to be filled by Korea Metal Worker’s Federation Chairman Jeon Jae-hwan or Korean Federation of Transportation Public and Social Service Worker’s Union Chairman Yang Gyeong-gyu, who have asked other executives to step down.

As a result, Chairman Lee, the group’s fourth leader following former chairman Dan Byung-ho (who is a Democratic Labor Party lawmaker), has faced ignominious retreat 15 months before his scheduled term expires.

Lee’s resignation before completing his term is the second for the group after former acting chairman Bae Seok-beom resigned after agreeing to expand the scale of pink-slips with the government in 1998.

Lee planned to officially announce his intention to resign in a press conference on the morning of the same day, but expressed his stance through a press release because a quarrel between hawkish leftists, who have strongly censured the executives, and the secretariat’s employees broke out.

Keuk-In Bae bae2150@donga.com