Contrary to some government officials' early expectations that strikes would soon fizzle out, the labor crisis is looking like being prolonged. Though some manufacturing workers on strike have returned to work, thousands of public-sector workers remained on strike at TV and radio stations and hospitals.
The militant Korea Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU set a Jan. 14 deadline after which they will launch even bigger strikes involving subway and communications workers. Unless the government repeals the controversial labor law by the deadline, the confederation said, it will face the worst strikes in the nation's history.
The confederation is also poised to enter the public-sector strikes earlier than the deadline if the government starts to crack down on union leaders. The Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU, the nation's biggest umbrella union claiming a membership of 1.2 million, is also scheduled to join the strikes Jan. 14-15.
The militant KCTU, spearheading the on-going strikes in protest of the nation's new labor law, said some 190,000 workers walked out at 150 businesses yesterday. But the Ministry of Labor Affairs said some 70,000 workers remained on strike at 68 work places nationwide as of 10:30 a.m. yesterday. The figures were lower in comparison with the previous day's of some 74,000 workers on strike at 70 workplaces nationwide, the ministry said.
Ministry officials said the decreasing trend has continued day by day since Jan. 3 when unions started resuming their second-stage strikes. The facts are that a number of workers in manufacturing businesses, including the nation's major auto plants and shipyards, gradually returned to work.
Assembly lines at the nation's major auto makers of Hyundai and Daewoo, were back in operation yesterday morning, several days after production stoppage. Unionized workers at the nation's key heavy industry businesses of Daewoo, Hankuk, Hyosong, Kangwon and Tonil returned to work from their walkouts.
Though there is a decrease in the total number of striking participants in manufacturing sectors nationwide, strike fever has not easily died down. The decrease was actually due to the KCTU's protest guideline recommending that unionized workers recommended ease their strikes to give the government time to review the labor law.
But the KCTU also has maintained enough interest in the strike to continue their protests after the Jan. 14 deadline by keeping many other manufacturing businesses idle. Behind the steady strike fever were thousands of striking workers at the nation's four major broadcasting companies and 19 hospitals across the nation.
Union leaders also appealed to international labor union organizations to get support for their strikes in protest of the nation's controversial labor law. Their appeals were answered when the Brussels-based International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU urged the government to reconsider the new labor law.
In letters to President Kim Young-sam and Labor Minister Jin Nyum, the ICFTU reportedly delivered its position that the nation's new labor law breaches international labor conventions. A delegation from ICFTU will arrive in Seoul today for talks with South Korean officials over the controversial labor laws.