대학 청소노동자 파업투쟁

About 860 unionized cleaning personnel and janitors at Seoul's Korea, Yonsei and Ewha Womans universities began a (sit-in)strike at 6 a.m. yesterday after they failed to reach an agreement with the schools over the justified(!!) raising their pay Monday.

The workers, all of whom are "irregular" workers hired by out-sourced companies, have demanded 5,180 won ($4.63) per hour since October 2010, whereas the universities have offered only 4,320 won, which is the minimum wage in S. Korea.

According to the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions(KCTU), which all the striking workers belong to, they asked for arbitration from the National Labor Relations Commission, a state-run arbitration organization, on Feb. 21.

On Feb. 24-26, KCTU said, 86.5 percent of the workers voted in favor of a strike if the commission failed to mediate the dispute by Monday.

Here some impressions from yesterday's first solidarity rally(by more than 800 workers and their supporters) inside Yonsei University: