The workers in South Korea have been struggling against the arrogance of government and employers for over 20 days. At dawn of December 26, when the most of people were still in bed, the ruling party passed new labor laws and a National Security Planning Agency (NSPA) act that had been in the public debate for a long time, in the absence of opposition parties.
The newly amended labor laws allow the employers to lay off the workers more easily, with the workers' right of association not fully guaranteed.
Also, the revised NSPA act makes a lot of Korean recall the ghost of dictatorship, which has given great pain to a Korean for almost 40 years.
Right after the anti-worker, anti-labor action of the government and ruling party, nationwide organized workers took the strong countermeasure.
That was the first ever Genaral Strike after the Korean War of 1950. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions(KCTU), which a de facto representive organization of the Korean workers and the crystallization of the long labor struggle, directed the members to go on a strike immediately. Since that time, the general strike has been kept on in spite of the severe coercion of the government. More and more workers and labor unions has joined the rank of the strikes. The struggle of workers protesting against anti-labor laws is spreading to the nationwide resistance like wildfire.
The homepage named "The General Strike in South Korea" (URL : http://kpd.sing-kr.org/strike/index-e.html) was made to support the workers' struggle through the Internet. This page was initiated by the Alliance of Progressive Network Groups(APNG) just after the KCTU's declaration of the Genaral Strike. The member groups of APNG and a few volunteers applying through the online established the Telecommunication Task Group for the General Strike (TTGS). This task group takes responsible for the all activities supporting the strike through all kinds of networks, i.e. BBS, WWW, Newsgroup, etc. They have registered the urgent report on the struggle situation to the major commercial BBS every hour, so that all the participants and supporters of this strikes are well informed everytime.
Leave the message of warm solidarity !
Until now from the first appearance in the Net, a lot of people from all over the world has visited this page, signed their name and left the message of warm solidarity. We want you to share this solidarity. It must be of tremendous help to the workers fighting even in the severe cold of winter. So, please make sure link this General Strike homepage to your one. And don't forget to encourage your comrades to do the same thing. It might look like a trivial thing to you, but it is absolutely not. Your small support can make a great thing. And that is the power of solidarity.
The task group also has played a leading role for Black Ribbon Campaign. The Black Ribbon means the death of Democracy in this country. But, it also means world-wide threats to the workers and all the nations. So, We want you to express your impeachment of the anti-labor action of the Korean government and the ruling power all around world, by diffusing this black ribbon through the Net.
You can get the ribbon in our homepage with ease. (http://kpd.sing-kr.org/strike/blackribbon.html")
You are strongly recommended to link this image file of the black ribbon to your pages.
And also don't leave your colleagues alone.
Just click your mouse over the Black Ribbon and put it on yours. That's so easy! but must be powerful.
Finally, We ask you to make sure inform us via e-mail, in case that you take any action we request above.
We really appreciate your concern and support. Please keep on doing it. WE WILL WIN!
In Solidarity
12 January 1997
The Telecommunication Task Group for the General Strike(TTGS)
e-mail : rys@member.sing-kr.org
homepage : http://kpd.sing-kr.org/strike/index-e.html
mailing list : jinbo@mail.sing-kr.org
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