27개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
Yesterday afternoon in central Seoul: Hundreds of migrant workers(*) mostly from south-east Asian countries, gathered to join the "Migrant Workers' Struggle Day", in order to protest the government's new (anti-migrant) labour policy:
We joined the migrant workers from Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Nepal to scrap the new policy of the Ministry of Labor and Employment of the South Korean Government. “The Measure of improvement of the foreign workers’ change of workplaces and prevention of broker intervention” is anti-migrant that only benefits the employers.
The new measure will only aggravate the situation of all migrant workers in Korea because it is the curtailment of migrant workers’ freedom - freedom of movement and freedom of choice of employment. It puts always the migrants’ workers at the mercy of the employers; it reinforces a modern type of slavery. There would be more exploitation and violation of labor rights and in effect, the increase of more undocumented migrants’ workers. This is not the solution for the growing number of EPS workerswho want to transfer to other company rather it is a new big problem. (source: Alliance of Filipino Migrant Workers in Korea/KASAMMAKO)
Here some more impressions from yesterday's protest(rally and demonstration):
* ...approx. 1000, according to NewsCham. The cops counted at least 600 participants and 300, according to the reactionary daily JoongAng Ilbo...
Anyway... as far as I know, yesterday's rally was the most powerful protest by migrant workers since the end of MSSC's 384-days sit-in strike(almost 8 years ago)!!
Related articles:
☞ 이주노동자 일자리 선택, 사장님 맘대로? (NewsCham, 8.19)
☞ 거리 나선 이주노동자들 "고용허가제 폐지하고 사업장 이동자유 보장하라" (JoongAng Ilbo, 8.19)
Now it's official: KCTU(*) gives the Unified "Progressive" Party(UPP) its quietus(reminder: UPP's main/leading faction is the former Democratic Labour Party/DLP and the DLP was founded 12 years ago in the effort to create a political wing for KCTU...^^)!!!
Today's Yonhap reported the following about the latest developments:
South Korea's progressive umbrella union on Tuesday announced it will withdraw support for the minor Unified Progressive Party (UPP), citing failure of the party to push forward meaningful reforms.
The decision by the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) made in an 11 hour-long marathon discussion session, comes after the UPP failed last month to pass a motion expelling Reps. Lee Seok-ki and Kim Jae-yeon, who have been accused of unfairly winning proportional representative seats in the April 11 parliamentary elections.
Lee, a leader of the so-called pro-North Korea faction within the party, also sparked a nationwide uproar when he said South Korea does not have an official national anthem.
The failure to deal with the controversial pro-North Korea faction and its alleged election rigging has fueled a fierce feud within the left-leaning party with reformist members who make up the minority threatening to leave and create their own political entity.
There has also been a rise in the number of members leaving the party as well as a weakening of public support, but UPP loyalists claimed moves to set up a new political entity could break up the progressive camp ahead of the critical Dec. 19 presidential election.
The KCTU, meanwhile, said its decision to break up with the UPP was reached with 27 of the 39 representatives voting in support of the move during a closed-door central executive committee meeting.
The KCTU action is expected to impact the UPP, since the union is the single largest support base for the party and had consistently tried to push it to reform itself to meet the expectations of the general public. Of the UPP's 75,000 members with voting rights, 46 percent or nearly 35,000 are part of the large umbrella union.
Before the latest action, the labor union issued an ultimatum in May calling on the UPP to take all necessary steps to reform itself and deal with the election fraud issue. At the time, the trade union called for the wholesale resignation of proportional candidates who were elected, the party leadership and secretariat.
"The decision to withdraw support was based on an independent assessment of the situation by the union," the KCTU said in a press release.
Jung Ho-hee, a spokesperson for the union, said the latest measure does not automatically translate into the KCTU supporting the creation of another progressive party...
* Related stuff(^^):
☞ Union group holds anti-U.S., pro-North game show (JoongAng Ilbo, 8.14)
Y'day evening/night the Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination held a Solidarity Party at Seoul's Korea University to support jailed disabled activists, i.e. raise money for their fines.
Here just some impressions from the event:
Related article:
☞ Disabled activists denied dignity in jail (Hankyoreh, 8.10)
The S. Korean Hankyoreh newspaper and Asia Times (HK) published last week almost simultaneously the following readable/interesting article:
North Korea and Disneyland/Kim Jong-eun's Mickey Mouse world
When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently watched a concert that included Disney figures like Mickey Mouse, it was big news. Foreign analysts rushed to the conclusion that the young leader was presiding over a shift in Pyongyang’s attitudes about the West. After all, Mickey Mouse is a symbol of American imperialism and Western penetration almost as potent as McDonald’s.
But the worlds of Walt Disney and Kim Il Sung are actually not that far apart.
The world of Disney is the closest thing to totalitarianism that the entertainment-industrial complex has ever produced. The founder, Walt Disney, created a saccharine, air-brushed utopia that has been a dystopic reality for so many who have worked in the many enterprises of the Disney universe. The affinity between Disneyworld and the world of North Korea goes beyond any taste for Western-style entertainment that Kim Jong Un might have picked up during his Swiss education.
Walt Disney, born in 1901, created an empire of cartoons, movies, and theme parks, first in the United States and then throughout the world. He is described today in the Disney materials much as North Korean literature describes Kim Il Sung. “One hundred years ago, Walt Disney was born. And the world changed forever,” reads the Disney website. “We all hold a special place for the magical legacy of this one man.”
You can buy a book called “Walt’s Famous Quotes,” published by the Disney company, in which the founder gives his insights about the world. Disney himself maintained tight control of the company when he was alive, engaging in his own form of “one the spot guidance” to ensure that the Disney brand remained consistent.
Maintaining tight control has allowed Disney to penetrate the minds of children everywhere. Disney’s successors, like Michael Eisner, worked hard to maintain the founder’s vision. "It was Eisner's dream that the typical consumer would patronize Disney movies, watch Disney TV shows, buy Disney videos, spend money at Disney stores, vacation on Disney cruise lines, take his or her kids to Disney theme parks - all the while becoming completely enveloped in the Disney subculture," according to Peter Bart of Variety.
Disney, in other words, is not simply a choice among many. Disney is intended to be all-encompassing.
The novelist Robert Harris, who has written books about Nazi Germany, has analyzed the totalitarian nature of Disney and critiqued its project of rewriting history and myths in order to produce its own version of the truth. He points out that Disney, like all totalitarian leaders, focuses on children, employing “that classic totalitarian technique of preaching family values while subverting the family structure, appealing over the heads of parents directly to their children.”
Disney was not content to create theme parks. He also wanted to build entire cities. The town of Celebration, Florida, is Disney-built and Disney-maintained. It looks like the set of a Disney movie depicting the 1950s: manicured lawns, white picket fences, kids on bicycles. The company even controls the weather, organizing fake snowfalls in December. Behind the scenes, however, Celebration has suffered the same problems as the rest of America: a high rate of foreclosure, suicide, and even murder.
Then there’s Disney’s approach to labor regimentation and surveillance, which rival that of North Korea. Those who aspire to work at Disney Land, for instance, go through a training period in which they are instructed to look “all-American.” In other words, according to one such aspirant, “Men were not allowed piercings, visible tattoos, or unkempt facial hair; we could wear one ring on the left hand if we wanted. Women were given an ‘appropriate’ range of hair length and amount of skin showing.” Trainees and workers are closely watched to make sure that they never violate any of the rules of Disney.
And those who manage to get a job with the company discover that, after all the deductions, they barely make enough to survive. Some employees have to rely on church donations and government assistance to get by.
Disneyland presents one face to the world: cheerful, child-like. But the reality behind Disneyland is grim.
The world of Walt Disney is the kind of social engineering that the North Korean regime has aspired to create. North Korea, too, has a founder who serves as a substitute father for all children, who established a governing template that his successors religiously maintain, and whose wisdom continues to be celebrated through word and image. North Korea projects a utopian vision of smiling, hard-working people that turns out to be very different in reality. The government attempts to maintain strict social control, particularly in Pyongyang, the showcase capital.
And both Walt Disney and Kim Il Sung realized the power of film to capture and shape the imagination, particularly of children. They realized that if you change the minds of children, you can change the future. In North Korea, children imprint on Kim Il Sung, much as baby ducklings will imprint on the first face they see and much as children all over the world imprint on Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.
Kim Jong Un may turn out to be a Gorbachev-style reformer in North Korea who moves his country in the direction of the West. But the evidence for this belief is rather thin. He studied in the West and, it turns out, has a very pretty wife who is a stylish dresser. But then, Bashar al-Assad in Syria also studied in Europe and has a stylish wife, and that hasn’t prevented him from launching large-scale repression in his country.
As for Kim Jong Un’s embrace of Mickey Mouse, it may just reflect a deeper affinity between North Korea and Disneyland. The sons of Kim Jong Il have all reportedly visited Disneyland in Japan, with Kim Jong Nam deported from Narita airport in 2001 after trying to use a fake passport to gain access to his favorite destination. Portrayed as temporary escapes from their rigidly controlled country, these visits were nothing of the sort. At Disneyland, Kim Jong Un and his brothers must have felt right at home.
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/545001.html
The workers in S. Korea "struggle with a reality in which brutality against labor still exists, and the Ssangyong Motors dispute exposed the most gruesome aspect of this reality. In 2009, when management tried to lay off 2,646 workers, 36% of the total workforce, the labor union responded with a strike. Eventually, this incident ended when labor and management reached an agreement. They agreed to give 461 workers, who were scheduled to be laid off, an unpaid leave of absence and to reinstate them a year later. However, management has yet to fulfill their promise of reinstatement..." (Kyunghyang Shinmun, 8.07)
Now, exactly three years later, laid off Ssangyong workers and their supporters are - once again - demanding the then promised re-employment...
Since y'day morning activists are besieging the HQ of Saenuri-dang(the ruling New Frontier Party, formerly known as Grand National Party/Hanara-dang) in Yeouido for 72 hours to reinforce the promised re-employment...
While y'day, until the late afternoon, almost everthing went - more or less - smoothly...
...in the late evening the 'authorities' decided that "The party is over!":
Source of the pics: Jombbae Jum
But, believe it or not...
THE STRUGGLE GOES ON!!
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