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Yonhap wrote 5.8 and 5.9 following shit...

S. Korean labor minister cautions against excessive concern over labor rights in

South Korea's labor minister urged the international community on Monday not to hastily conclude that the inter-Korean industrial complex in Kaesong is vulnerable to labor rights abuse.

Speaking to a group of Seoul-based foreign correspondents, Lee Sang-soo stressed that North Korea's working conditions cannot be compared blindly with those seen in other nations.

"Some foreign nations are showing sensitive responses to the wage level at the Kaesong industrial complex, claiming it is too low," Lee said. "Taking North Korea's unique system and its community into account, however, different interpretations are available. Making a hasty judgment should be restrained."
His remarks came in response to growing concern by foreigners, especially U.S. officials, over the low wages being paid to thousands of North Korean workers and a lack of transparency over how they are remunerated. The industrial zone is being hailed as a perfect model of economic cooperation between the two Koreas, which have been divided for half a century by a heavily armed demilitarized zone.

The complex, created three years ago in North Korea's border city of Kaesong, is aimed at combining South Korean capital and expertise with the North's cheap land and labor.

During a public lecture in Washington in March, Jay Lefkowitz, the U.S. envoy on North Korean human rights, argued that North Korean workers in the zone receive pitifully low wages and are not protected by full labor rights, raising the need for the International Labor Organization to monitor the situation.

The envoy underlined the fact that North Korean laborers get paid less than US$2 a day.

Officials at the Unification Ministry, which handles Seoul's policy toward Pyongyang, hit back at Lefkowitz's criticism, saying it was misplaced.

Each worker gets an average of $67 a month, considerably more than the communist country's average monthly wage of $14, they pointed out.

South Korea's labor minister said the government will be prepared when U.S. officials broach the subject of labor rights at the Kaesong complex at forthcoming free trade agreement talks between Seoul and Washington. The point of contention is whether to include goods produced there among made-in-Korea products in any possible FTA deal.

South Korea wants them to be recognized as its own in order to legitimize them, a proposal the U.S. finds unacceptable given its brooding standoff with the North.

Lee also vowed to step up efforts to address the polarization of the country's labor market.

Regular workers at larger companies are protected by powerful labor unions, while small-and medium-sized firms hire a growing number of part-time workers who are vulnerable to lay-offs, he said.

"So, the government's policy of increasing flexibility in the labor market will target regular workers at large companies," he said.

Unification minister visits Kaesong amid U.S. criticism of joint comple

Seoul's top official on North Korean
affairs, Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok, on Tuesday said the government will continue its joint project with communist North Korea to build an industrial complex in the North's border town of Kaesong despite "any difficulties."
The remarks came during his one-day trip to the joint industrial complex, but it was believed to have offered Seoul's view on Washington's skepticism about the inter-Korean project.

"We will achieve our goal no matter what difficulties lie ahead. I promise North and South Korea will never stop the Kaesong project despite any changes to the state of things on the Korean Peninsula," the unification minister said.

He crossed the heavily-armed inter-Korean border back to South Korea shortly before 5 p.m.

One of the main joint economic projects being conducted by the divided Koreas, the Kaesong complex is touted as a fruit of inter-Korean rapprochement following the historic summit between then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2000.

More than 6,500 North Korean workers are already working for a dozen South Korean firms operating in the joint complex, with the number of employees expected to increase to over 350,000 by 2012 when the industrial complex moves into full swing, according to officials at the Unification Ministry.

However, several U.S. officials, including Washington's special envoy for North Korean human rights Jay Lefkowitz, have expressed concerns that the joint economic project may end up funneling billions of dollars to support the North's cash-stripped regime while doing little to help the North's people, let alone inter-Korean relations.

The unification minister said the Kaesong complex will provide a venue where "North and South Korea work to pursue their common interests, and now I am very confident of it."
The United States and the international community have been pressuring the communist North to improve its human rights
conditions despite a continued stalemate in international negotiations over the North's nuclear weapons program.

Pyongyang denies having any human rights problems, calling the U.S. accusations part of a smear campaign.

Seoul refuses to publicly pressure the communist state to change its ways, but claims its economic assistance for the impoverished North is helping millions of North Koreans enjoy their most basic human right; the right to live.

"At least since 2000 when we began providing assistance to the North, no one there has starved to death," the unification minister said in Seoul last week in a special lecture for the presidential National Unification Advisory Council's delegates from North and South American countries.

North Korea has relied on assistance from the South and other international relief agencies to feed a large number of its 23 million population since the mid 1990s, while the country is expected to fall far short again of producing enough food this year.

The South Korean minister was accompanied by Hyun Jeong-eun,chairwoman of South Korea's Hyundai Group, and a group of about 160 officials from his ministry and South Korean firms currently operating in the Kaesong complex, according to ministry officials.

The unification minister also visited the office of an inter-Korean economic promotion committee where resident representatives from the two Koreas hold weekly meetings and consultations.

He also hosted a lunch for the visiting delegation at the famous Chanamsan Hotel in downtown Kaesong before visiting historic sites in what was the capital of an ancient Korean kingdom, according to ministry officials.

NORTH KOREAN WORKERS ARE ALSO WORKERS AND THEY SHOULD HAVE ...at least... THE SAME RIGHTS LIKE S. KOREAN WORKERS!!!

HUMAN AND LABOUR RIGHTS FOR ALL WORKERS!!!