New York Times/Business November 25, 2000 Korean Unions Threaten Nationwide Strike
SEOUL, South Korea, Nov. 24 — South Korea's two most powerful labor unions threatened today to hold a nationwide strike on Dec. 5 to protest government-led corporate overhauls that could force thousands out of work.
"We strongly oppose the government's heavy-handed restructuring policy, which requires only laborers' sacrifices," leaders of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions and the more strident Korean Confederation of Trade Unions said. "We are preparing a push for a nationwide strike on Dec. 5."
The groups said that they expected 25,000 workers to take part in a protest scheduled for Sunday and would hold another on Dec. 30 to protest changes that are planned in the public sector.
The umbrella group leaders, representing some 1.8 million workers, met to discuss ways to cope with the huge layoffs that are expected as banks step up pressure on financially weak companies to bolster themselves through steps including job cuts. Earlier this month, creditor banks named 52 companies as nonviable and designated more than half of them for receivership or liquidation.
Analysts said labor's opposition to job cuts was impeding the government's drive to strengthen companies and the financial sector, actions that Seoul pledged in return for a $58.35 billion bailout led by the International Monetary Fund after the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
Daewoo Motor's banks gave up a 16-month rescue effort two weeks ago, forcing the company into filing the country's biggest bankruptcy case after its union rejected a call for job cuts. The union again rejected job cuts in talks that broke off today. The company, the third largest automaker in Korea, has 19,000 employees at home and 500 main suppliers employing over 300,000. Its fate is in the hands of a court reviewing its receivership application.
Earlier today, a walkout at the utility giant Korea Electric Power Corporation was narrowly averted as unions said they would hold off on a strike decision until Wednesday. Like the banks and big business, the government is under pressure to spin off noncore businesses and streamline its operations but the unions oppose privatization plans at the state-owned utility. [end]