2249개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
Yesterday(6.02) nearby 'Daehanmun', the main entrance of Deoksugung/Palace in downtown Seoul: Students' Solidarity Day ("Market of Hope" and "Culture Festival") to support the struggle of dismissed SsangYong workers...
For more info about the SsangYong Struggle please check out LabourStart [Korea (South), resp. Korea]!
Weekly Appeal for Peace on Jeju Island (May 28, 2012):
Resign, Island Governor!
No Military Base! Yes, Life and Peace Island!
The “civilian-military dual-use” base is a lie!
Stop the destruction, human rights violations and pro-nuclear MD policy!
Jeju Island Governor Woo Keun-Min has finally lost the confidence of the Gangjeong villagers. It has been revealed that he doesn’t have the will to order the navy to stop construction (destruction). For a long time, he has utilized stalling tactics and avoided deciding between the central government and Gangjeong villagers. However, it seems certain that he stands by the government and actually permits construction of the military base even though he knows that the construction has many problems. Therefore, five leaders, including Gangjeong mayor Kang Dong-Kyun, shaved their head in protest of the governor’s dubious decision...
...while announcing, “A new struggle to make him resign has begun!”
Moreover, while the environmental destruction issues have been raised, there have recently also been questions posed by the Jeju media that there are illegal and unreliable points in the process of the caisson production. It turned out that Samsung C & T used shorter caisson rods than legally allowed by regulation. It seems that the Samsung C & T is trying to construct the naval base in violent haste in order to save time and expense.
Despite all the hardships, the people’s efforts to save the village are spreading far nationwide, especially in Seoul where people hold a Gangjeong camp at the Jogye Buddhist temple. Last weekend the 17th Human Rights Film Festival took place in downtown Seoul, where the struggle against the Jeju Naval (Pirate) Base was one of the main topics.
Comrade Kim Jin-suk, the "heroine of the Busan crane sit-in struggle", has been in Germany for a lecture tour(5.19~26) and today's Hankyoreh reported the following:
Hope Bus activist shares her heart-warming stories of shit bombs and struggle
Kim Jin-suk brings story of crane campaign against worker dismissals to Germany
Labor activist Kim Jin-suk wrote a new chapter in the history of South Korea’s organized labor movement with her 309-day-long strike atop a crane in a shipyard in Busan. On a May 24 visit to the Berlin chapter of the German Industrial Union of Metalworkers (IG Metall), she drew an enthusiastic response from an audience of around 50. Kim shared the story of how her refusal to come down from the crane led to the Hope Bus movement that drew thousands of supporters from across the country.
[5.22] Kim Jin-suk's lecture at "taz Café"(Berlin-Kreuzberg)...
The German workers showed a particularly keen interest in the South Korean layoff situation, noting a 2009 agreement among German unions, companies, and government to hold off wage increases. While it did not cause any major shocks, a large number of temporary workers ended up being dismissed, the workers said.
Kim was speaking in Germany as part of a tour of lectures and round tables in Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Berlin between May 19 and 26 with Hwang I-ra, head of the counseling department in the Korea Confederation of Trade Union’s Busan chapter. The labor communities in South Korea and Germany already have a history of solidarity, as last year’s Hope Bus movement drew messages of support from German workers.
IG Metall began pushing to invite Kim after finding out about her aerial protest from an article in the progressive daily Tageszeitung. Hans Koumlbrich, 67, of the union’s international relations division, which handled organizational efforts for the effect, characterized the crane strike and Hope Bus campaign as an “unprecedented” labor struggle.
A packed house of around 100 people attended an evening talk on the crane protest on May 22 at the Taz Cafe on Berlin’s Rudi-Dutschke-Strasse, which is run by the Tageszeitung. A grateful Kim told the audience, “I was able to come down alive [from the crane] thanks to all of you who came to see me and showed your solidarity.”
She also had the audience in stitches with anecdotes from her desperate struggle, such as the time she used feces as a “bomb” when hired security workers attempted to ascend the crane.
But the mood turned somber when she responded to a question by one audience member who asked whether she had decided alone or with other union members to station herself atop the crane. “No one knew I was doing it,” she said. “People were stunned when they found out.”
The talk ended up going on well over an hour past the scheduled ending time as audience members asked question after question. A Siemens employee said, “As a fellow worker, I was very moved by Kim Jin-suk’s courage.”
Yu Jae-hyeon, a 38-year-old Korean who came to Germany in 2001, called Kim a “little giant” and said, “Since she was someone who went through an ordeal lasting 309 days, I was expecting her to be big and burly. It was a shock to see how frail she was.”
Kim also attended the May People’s Festival, an event on May 26 organized by Koreans in Germany to commemorate the Gwangju Democratization Movement in 1980.
The German listeners were especially interested in the Hope Buses. Kim called the caravan an alternative to an bureaucratic South Korean labor campaign, saying, “It was the first time in thirty years of labor activity that I’d ever seen a show of solidarity like that.
"If the KCTU had come up with the Hope Bus idea, it would have had a really long name like ‘the struggle for such and such,’" she added. "I think the Hope Buse movement was attractive because it wasn’t authoritarian and bureaucratic. It became possible to have something heartfelt and warm."
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/535250.html
The Korean version you can read here.
Last Thursday(5.24), directly after the police Attack against the SsangYong Memorial Site, the KBS Symphony Orchestra decided to support the justified struggle of the dismissed workers of SsangYong Motors for re-employment.
So y'day(5.26) evening some members of the orchestra gave a Solidarity Concert in front of 'Daehanmun', the main entrance of Deoksugung/Palace in downtown Seoul. Here they performed compostitions by Mozart, Vivaldi, E. Grieg etc. About 200 citizens and activists enjoyed this unique concert...
Related report(incl. several nice pics):
☞ 쌍용차 분향소 찾은 KBS교향악단 "죄송합니다" (VoP, 5.26)
As already reported, last Sat.(5.19) thousands of activists took the streets in downtown Seoul to support the struggle of the dismissed SsangYong workers, damanding their re-employment(more info you'll get here!)...
And today the "authorities" retalieted: In the morning(9:30am) dozens of cops and employees/thugs, hired by Seoul's municipality raided the site of the SsangYong Memorial Service (nearby 'Daehanmun', the main entrance of Deoksugung/Palace in downtown Seoul), attacked the members of the sit-in struggle collective and finally destroyed everything there.
Here some impressions from the attack and what they (the cops etc.) left behind:
But the struggle goes on! Since the early evening hundreds of people are gathering there to show their solidarity:
Related articles:
☞ 경찰, 쌍차 분향소 강제 철거...충돌 NewsCham (5.24)
☞ 쌍용차 분향소 철거, 대한문 앞은 이미 '공안정국' (VoP, 5.24)
☞ '덕수궁 분향소' 싹쓸이..."그건 쓰레기 아냐!" (OMN, 5.24)
☞ 쌍용차 분향소 추가 침탈을 규탄한다! (Press release, 5.24)
Yesterday(5.19) afternoon in downtown Seoul: About 5000 workers(mainly organized in the KCTU), activists of people's resistance organisations and members of solidarity groups gathered in front of Central Railway Station to commemorate the 22 fatal victims of the mass layoff at SsangYong Motors.
In the following protest demonstration, a short while after the beginning blocked by thousands of riot cops, all attendees vowed to fight untill all dismissed SsangYong workers are re-employed.
While yesterday's protest was only the preliminary climax of a campaign which started already five month ago (see also: "Solidarity tents for dismissed SsangYong workers'), the organizers announced a "Nationwide Action Day" to be held in the next month (6.16), to enforce the campaign's demands.
Here just some impressions from yesterday's rally and demo:
Related reports:
☞ 쌍용차 희생자 추모 범국민대회...“추모는 끝났다” (NewsCham, 5.19)
☞ 쌍용차 범국민대회 열려...“죽음에게 죽음을 선언한다” (VoP, 5.19)
☞ “쌍용자동차 해고자복직, 살인진압 책임자처벌 즉각 실시하라!” (KCTU, 5.20)
Seoul's Metropolitan Gov't, led by the new mayor Park Won-soo, announced almost three month ago that it will re-evaluate its “New Town" projects through a series of feasibility studies that could "ultimately determine their fate"...
And now it seems that, possibly, this wasn't just an empty promise - as far as the following report, published in yesterday's (conservative) JoongAng Ilbo, reflects the reality:
Seoul delists 18 sectors in ‘New Town’ development
The Seoul Metropolitan Government began its re-evaluation processes to decide the fate of 265 regions in Seoul that are designated as the city’s “new town” redevelopment project, a large scale project to redevelop old residential areas which began in 2002.
The city government decided to remove 18 sectors from the project, including the Dongdaemun 1 and 2 sectors in Dongdaemun District in central Seoul, Eunpyeong 7 sector in Eunpyeong District, and Hongje 4 sector in Seodaemun District, both in northern Seoul, as more than 30 percent of the residents or landlords are opposed to the new town project.
City officials said they will discuss details with residents about the necessary process to withdraw the project in the coming months, expecting to notify them if they are removed from the list by the second half of the year.
The large-scale reconstruction project will be replaced with smaller-scale residential environment improvement projects, including remodeling old structures.
In January, Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon declared that the city will re-evaluate the project through a series of feasibility studies over the designated areas’ business potential and capital requirements. Park said that the studies will be conducted in two different ways, based on whether an area has formed a committee to represent each region’s landlords and residents. Currently, a total of 610 sectors are designated for the project.
Studies will be conducted of the 265 regions that do not have a committee on two separate occasions. The city will conduct studies on 163 sectors with severe conflicts between residents in June and will start studying the remaining 102 in October.
“We expect the information that will be gathered from the studies to provide clear information on each sector’s business potential so it can resolve the conflicts that have occurred among residents,” Lee Geon-ki, the director of the city’s housing policy department, said during a press briefing held yesterday at City Hall.
The studies will be led by district officials in each region in conjunction with civic experts and civil servants and will provide estimated payments that each household will have to pay to participate in a new town project.
There will also be a series of briefing sessions with residents to introduce the purpose of the study in order to facilitate cooperation between landlords and residents.
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