Strikes, Labor Unrest Sweeping Nation

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) began a general strike to protest the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and the current “Industrial Relations Roadmap Agreement” on November 22. It is the seventh strike staged by the KCTU this year.

The Korean Teachers & Educational Workers’ Union (KTU) also held rallies against a new evaluation system on teachers to be implemented by the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development in 2008. It is the 12th time since the KTU was legalized in 1999 that teachers took one-day vacations to stage rallies at the same time nationwide.

Mass rallies were held nationwide simultaneously, including the KCTU’s general strike resolution rallies, the KTU’s one-day strike rallies, and those by the Korean Alliance Against the Korea-U.S. FTA.

Participants in the rallies did not keep their promise to follow the law by taking up more lanes than agreed in advance and taking highways, prompting complaints from other citizens.

The KCTU began an indefinite general strike by staging simultaneous rallies in thirteen cities nationwide, including Seoul, Busan, Daegu, and Incheon. According to the Labor Ministry’s data collection, the number of participants was 58,000 in 92 industrial facilities, not 200,000 as announced by the KCTU.

The general strike will be switched to partial strikes from November 23, and the strike schedule after November 29 has not been set yet.

About 3,000 unionized teachers and 1,000 students of universities of education held a two-hour rally at Seoul Plaza in front of City Hall at 1:00 p.m. on the same day.

After the Education Ministry announced its plan to punish principals and vice principals for allowing their teachers to participate in the one-day strike, teachers came to join the rallies by not going to work without notice or leaving school early. Sixteen offices of education made a tentative report that 2,956 teachers participated in the strike.

Some 70,000 people participated in rallies against the Korea-U.S. FTA held in thirteen cities nationwide.