CINA

In Turkey, members of UNI Commerce affiliate Tez-Koop-IS have staged a solidarity demonstration for their shop worker colleagues in Korea. The Homever, New Core and Kim's Club workers' trade union has also received material support from the Turkish commerce union, to help them survive and win the long drawn strike.

 
Trade unions around the globe are stepping up their support for the young Korean shop workers, who are fighting for their jobs in a bitter struggle against retail giant E.Land. The Korean fashion retailer bought Carrefour's hypermarket chain last year, and proceeded to dismiss over 1,000 of its workers during the first months of 2007.

The dismissed workers were supermarket and department store cashiers and sales assistants, mainly young women working on a part-time basis or with time-limited contracts. Through the dismissals, the company tries to escape its obligations to grant permanent contracts to most of them, as required by new labour legislation. Making use of a loophole in the law, E.Land wanted to outsource these functions instead.

From the beginning, this labour conflict has been marked by a close complicity between the employer and the South Korean government. Instead of intervening in the many irregularities that management has been caught for, the authorities have done their best to suppress any trade union action by the E.Land workers. Sit-in strikes have been forcibly ended through riot police interventions with young women workers torn to waiting prison buses and transported to police stations around the Korean capital.

By the end of August, ten local trade union representatives remain in police prisons. Demands to release them have been ignored by the Korean decision makers and government authorities, including an intervention by the Director General of the International Labour Organisation ILO.

The New Core Outlet, Kim's Club and Homever workers struggle has drawn much support and admiration from trade unions around the world. UNI Commerce affiliates such as UFCW in the United States and ver.di in Germany have already given financial support to their Korean colleagues, as well as SETCa-BBTK in Belgium, Tez-Koop-IS in Turkey and HK in Denmark.

Earlier this week, E.Land announced the launch of its new Who.A.U. fashion store chain in the United States, with the first outlet to be opened in October. UNI Commerce is in discussions with US trade unions about suitable ways of informing the American consumers about the company's behaviour at home in Korea. In fact, the target group in the United States is identical to the company's target in Korea, young women - but the difference is that the American teens and young people will be targeted commercially, in Korea by riot police and hired thugs.

Source: uni global union

Related: 

☞ 연행과 물대포, '그래도 우린 매장으로 돌아간다' (pictures/Tongil News, 8.31)

"31일 오후 이랜드 일반노조원을 비롯해 이들과 연대투쟁을 벌이고 있는 전국민주연합노조 소속 조합원과 민주노총'이랜드,뉴코아 타격1000인 선봉대' 등 1200여명이 이랜드 매장인 홈에버 상암점에 집결해 해고자 복직과 '비정규직 철폐'를 요구하며 집회를 벌였다."

☞ 이랜드 사측 직원의 절규, '발목 잡지 마라!' (pictures/Tongil News, 8.31)

"이랜드 사태가 장기화 되면서 30일 이랜드 전국 33개점 매장 사측 직원 800여명이 민주노총과 민주노동당사 앞. 홈에버 상암점 앞 등지에서 이랜드 노조와의 연대단체들이 '외부세력'이라며 항의집회를 벌였다. 사진은 홈에버 상암점에서 이랜드 노조측을 향해 항의피켓을 든 사측 직원의 모습."

☞ 뉴코아-이랜드 투쟁 보고서 (참세상TV, 9.02/documentary video: Chronologically Report of the E.Land Struggle, Chamsesang TV, incl. English subtitles)