BY IGGY KIM
The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions began an "all-out struggle" of rolling strikes on June 12 to protest the Kim Dae-jung regime's intensifying neo-liberal attacks.
The KCTU reported that on the first day 50,228 workers from 126 work sites came out, including 25,485 metalworkers, 14,658 from the airline unions and 5140 workers in the synthetic fibre industry. Many of the individual unions, such as the Korean Airlines Pilots' Union and the Hyosung workers, had already begun their own strikes in the last few months.
On June 12, workers rallied in 14 regions to mark the start of the strikes. In Seoul, a rally of about 10,000 gathered at University Road. That morning, the government issued arrest warrants for 14 officials of the Korean Airlines Pilots' Union. At the Seoul rally, a wanted KCTU official was arrested. There are also arrest warrants out for national leaders of the KCTU.
The participation in the June 12 strike was lower than the 70,000 or so who participated in the first day of the nominal "general strike" last June.
A focus of this year's campaign is the wave of fierce police repression against struggling workers, most recently against the Hyosung metalworkers, Korea Telecom contract workers and 114 telephone operators. The most notorious was the April 10 police attack on Daewoo workers.
The KCTU welcomes solidarity messages. Please send them to <kctu@chollian.dacom.co.kr> and <inter@kctu.org>.