CINA

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Last year the S.K. gov't missed no opportunity to send almost weekly large units of riot cops to oppress strikes and other activities by the working class, in particular against struggling irregular workers.

Now the New Year is "promising" a new era of class struggle with more excesses against the oppressed and exploited classes by the ruling capitalists - now backed by the new reactionary gov't, the Lee Myung-bak administration.  Irregular workers, un-documented, and especially unionized (in the MTU) migrant workers, but also struggling street vendors, people who are defending their homes against the construction mafia, etc.. may likely be permanent targets by a new wave of state terror (if there will be no organized mass resistance!!).

12.27: Migrant workers joined one of the latest protests by irregular workers

 
Today's Korea Times already had to publish following article about the possible near future for large parts of the S.K. working class:

Another Tough Year Waits for Contract Workers

This year will be tougher for those employed on a temporary basis. Braving bone-chilling weather, hundreds of non-permanent workers took to the streets, demanding their companies promote their job status to permanent. But things are working against them. President-elect Lee Myung-bak openly vowed a ``business friendly environment,'' and their requests are feared to be falling on deaf ears.

Seventy non-permanent workers of Koscom, a stock information providing unit of the Korea Exchange, have been demanding secure jobs for more than 100 days. On Dec. 31, they climbed to the top of some high-rise CCTV towers in downtown Seoul to protest their current status.

Several days before, they had their heads shaved to express their anger. Seventy people have been staying in a tent in front of the Korea Exchange building in Yeouido for the past 113 days.

``This is the last thing we can do. We cannot step back nor move forward,'' Kim Yoo-shik, the spokesman for the workers, said Wednesday.

Separately, former female crewmembers of KTX, the Korean bullet train, also set up a tent on New Year's Day to restart their outdoor struggle in front of Seoul Station. They say they are dispatched workers from the state-run Korail, denying the train company's allegation that they were employees of its outsourcing company, which hired them as contract workers.

On Dec. 26, a court ruled that the crewmembers are employees of Korail, but the company is still refusing to hire them directly as permanent workers.

``Most of us are bread earners in our families and we have no other choice than to continue the struggle,'' Park Mal-hee, a member of the union, said.

The unionized workers of E-Land, saw the New Year in at the front of SaRang Community Church in Southern Seoul. The workers have been on strike against the distribution company since July 8 and tried to persuade the pastors to get company Chairman Park Sung-soo, an elder of the church, to resume negotiations and withdraw their dismissal.

However, much to their disappointment it seems very unlikely their request will be accepted. Observers say the change in attitude follows in the wake of Lee Myung-bak, former CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction, being elected as the next president.

E-Land sacked an additional 33 leaders of the union and ordered the suspension of another nine workers. The dismissal was delivered via text messages on mobile phones on Dec. 18 through 20, a day before the scheduled negotiations between the management and the union and around the election day.

Former KTX crewmembers also alleged that the railroad company halted negotiations with them on Dec. 24, just several hours before a scheduled meeting. Before the negotiations, the former workers offered stopping the strike on condition of going back to their workplaces as ``two-year-contract workers,'' instead of permanent ones, but the company did not accept their offer, they said.

Prof. Bae Kyue-shik of the Korea Labor Institute said February will be a critical time for them. He expected the protests to end before then, when the new government kicks off. ``There are no clear policies yet announced but the well-known image of Lee may pressure the protestors and they may choose a lesser sacrifice rather than a greater one by lingering on,'' he said.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/01/117_16595.html