Korean Gov't pressures rail strikers to end strike against privatization- it is “a declaration of war” against its people.

Korean Gov't pressures rail strikers to end strike against privatization- it is “a declaration of war” against its people.
Korean Gov't pressures rail strikers
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2013/12/116_148790.html

Passengers line up to buy tickets at Seoul Station in downtown Seoul, Sunday, with an electronic signboard displaying the list of trains cancelled due to the ongoing railroad union strike. / Korea Times photo by Ryu Hyo-jin

Longer walkout feared to disrupt operations further

By Kim Jae-won

The government said Sunday that it will hire more substitutes to replace striking Korea Railroad Corp. (KORAIL) workers. In response, union leaders vowed to fight until the government withdraws what it sees as a scheme to privatize the company.

“We will consider adding more substitutes who will replace regular workers if the strike drags on longer,” Land, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Suh Seoung-hwan told reporters during his visit to a railway depot in Guro, southwestern Seoul.

Suh said that the company is hiring 660 substitute workers — mostly locomotive engineers and crewmembers — to prevent the strike from derailing transport services for customers. In terms of the size and time of additional employment, he said that KORAIL management will make a decision depending on how long the strike will last.

KORAIL said that 2,200 workers, or one fourth of the 8,800 unionists on strike, have returned to their posts as of Sunday afternoon.

However, among locomotive engineers, a key workforce in operating trains, only 114 workers, or 4.2 percent of those on strike, resumed work, ignoring the company’s CEO Choi Yeon-hye, who issued a third ultimatum for them to return.

To make up for the shortage of locomotive engineers, Choi said, the company hurriedly hired 147 substitute engineers through open recruitments.

The strike will burden the nation’s transport system in this busy year-end season when many people travel to the countryside for family festivities.

Choi expected the operating ratio of railways nationwide to stay at about 76 percent this week thanks to substitute workers, higher than the initial expectations of 60 percent operating levels.

Union leaders pledged to continue the strike through Feb. 25, the first anniversary of the inauguration of President Park Geun-hye.

It is pressuring the company and the government to abandon their decision to establish an affiliate which will operate a new bullet train service departing from Suseo, southern Seoul by 2016. The union claims that is the first step toward privatizing the company, which it believes would cause mass layoffs.

On Saturday, tens of thousands of rail workers and supporters staged street demonstrations in downtown Seoul to protest what they call a government move to privatize state rail operations.

The protests intensified after the government, ignoring the workers’ demands, issued a formal license late Friday for a subsidiary to operate separately from KORAIL.

The labor union strongly condemned the transportation ministry for issuing the controversial license of the new KTX unit, saying it is “a declaration of war” against its people.

Kim Myong-hwan, president of the union, said that it will file a lawsuit to nullify the license. “We cannot accept the government’s decision to issue the license to the subsidiary. We will file a suit to nullify its decision,” Kim said.

However, the government is toughening its stance on the union.

Vice Transport Minister Yeo Hyung-ku said that the government considers dismissing workers on strike from their job if a walkout in essential public workplaces, including the railway operator, is prolonged and causes massive damage.

The union accused the government of seeking to implement such a measure, saying it is violation of the Constitution.

“It is against the Constitution which guarantees activities for labor rights. Our right to strike is already considerably limited because KORAIL is classified as one of the essential public workplaces,” said Choi Eun-cheol, a spokesman of the union, in a press conference at the office of the Democratic Party in Yeouido, Seoul.