CINA

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Last Friday's Hankyoreh newspaper published the following piece about currently experienced workers' solidarity:

 Like a steaming bowl of rice, restaurant offers warmth to those in need

Newly founded restaurant run by and for the benefit of laid off workers

Haru Hope Restaurant is a new kind of place that lets you enjoy a meal to help laid off workers.

Back on March 11, an anonymous 46-year-old rented out an indoor “pojangmacha” (outdoor tent restaurant) in Sangdo, a neighborhood in Seoul’s Dongjak district. The Sangdo Pojangmacha had been run by the wife of Korean Metal Workers’ Union Ssangyong chapter head Kim Jeong-woo, who had been laid off from his job. For that day, a sign went up announcing that the “Haru Hope Restaurant” (“haru” is a Korean word meaning “one day”) was open for business.

The restaurant is open one day a week to offer a helping hand to victims of the Ssangyong layoffs. Guests arrived clueless and left with an understanding of just what the meaning of their meals was.

The Sangdo Pojangmacha has been hanging up the Haru sign every Sunday since.

As word got around, sympathetic restaurant owners happily donated their own premises on holidays. In May, Chunsamwol [Spring March], a Korean multi-course meal restaurant near Seoul’s Hongik University, became Haru’s second branch. A third sprang up at Takjumak, a restaurant in Cheongju’s Sogok neighborhood in North Chungcheong province that specializes in unfiltered makgeolli (Korean rice wine; the restaurant’s name means ‘Makgeolli House’), followed by a fourth at Mapo Restaurant in the Samseong neighborhood of Daejeon.

Now a fifth is set to open its doors on Nov. 4 at the Ttasinbap [Hot Rice Ball] restaurant in Daegu’s Bisan neighborhood.

In each of these cases, the owners are letting out their restaurants on days when they are closed anyway: Sundays in the first, third, and fourth cases, Monday in the second.
The chefs are layoff victims: Ssangyong at the first branch, Cor-tek at the second, YPR at the third. Cooking duties at the fifth will be handles by workers laid off from Daegu Subway. On occasion, student groups and civic groups have volunteered to work in the kitchen and greeted guests. Recently, women from multicultural families have come by and prepared a host of different cuisines, which have been met with a strong response.

Individuals can also apply to work as volunteer servers. The restaurant has sometimes been shorthanded, but shortly after requests were sent out on Twitter, complete strangers came by to help.

The clientele at the Hope Restaurants has consisted of people who want to enjoy a meal for 5,000 won (US$4.60) while being a part of something good. Families have come in groups, and clubs have held lunch meetings there. Some people come for the food and stay to wash dishes. The number of servings per day has gone from 30 in the early days to as many as 150 recently.

In July, the restaurants raised 44 million won (US$40,100), which was passed on periodically to workers laid off from 44 companies nationwide, including Ssangyong, JEI, Cort/Cor-tek, and Daelim Motor.

The founder of the restaurants continues to insist on anonymity.

“When you’re laid off, it isn’t just your income being cut off,” the founder said during an Oct. 22 interview with the Hankyoreh. “Your connection to the world is severed.”
 

The founder said they began the project to “offer some hope in the lives of people who have tried to put food on the table and ended up someone else’s food.”

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/557667.html

To increase awareness, the "Hope Restaurants" held an event on Oct. 26 in cooperation with the "Network for a World Without Layoffs and Temporary Workers". Titled “Rice for Hope Concert” it took place in front of Daehanmun, the main gate of Deoksu-gung(palace) in the center of Seoul:

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Last Saturday(10.27) evening: At least 2000 labor activists gathered - despite heavy rainfall - in front of Seoul Stn.(in the center of the S. Korean capital city) for a "March for Hope" to demand "A World Without Irregular Employments"...

Here're just a few impressions from the event:

Related pieces:
☞ "Let's fight for a world without labor oppression!" (a play during the opening rally/video)
☞ 비정규직 10만 촛불 행진...2천 여명 모여 (NewsCham report, 10.28)

 

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Solidarity with the Protest of Hyundai Workers in Ulsan!

Since 12 days two labor activists - one official of the irregular workers' union of Hyundai Motors and the other a former irregular worker at the automaker - are now in sit-in strike on a power supply post...
 

 
...at the company's plant in the southeastern city of Ulsan to demand Hyundai give its irregular workers permanent stable employment contracts.

From last Friday(10.26) evening until the next morning about 1000 workers and supporting activists held a solidarity rally/culture festival in front of their sit-in struggle place... Here're just some impressions:  

Related articles:
☞ Korean workers stage protest against Hyundai (IndustriALL Global Union, 10.25)
☞ Ulsan labor protest making a splash (Hankyoreh, 10.20)

 

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Reminder: Jaeneung Sit-in Struggle Collective(JSSC) is waging a battle against the Jaeneung Education Institute for almost 1,770 days, and it still doesn’t end (detailed background info about the strike you'll find here!)...

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Solidarity with the Protest of Hyundai Workers in Ulsan!

Since seven days two labor activists - one official of the irregular workers' union of Hyundai Motors and the other a former irregular worker at the automaker - are now in sit-in strike on a power supply post at the company's plant in the southeastern city of Ulsan to demand Hyundai give its irregular workers permanent stable employment contracts...

Yesterday's Hankyoreh published the following report:

 
    Protestors on a pylon buckle down for bitter struggle   

Two men risk their safety in fight for regularization of workers 

The men on the electricity pylon shook with each gust of wind. Suspended 50 meters (eight or nine stories) up a skeletal metal structure on the afternoon of Oct. 21, Choe Byeong-seung and Cheon Ui-bong looked as though they might blow away at any moment.

The pylon was located near the Myeongchon Central gate of Hyundai Motor’s factory in Ulsan. Choe, 36, is a former employee of an in-house subcontractor at the automaker; Cheon, 31, is secretary-general of Hyundai Motor temporary workers’ union. They placed themselves in this precarious position to demand the company take action to hire on its illegally employed temporary workers as full-time employees.

“All it takes is a train passing by and it sends a tremor up the pylon,” said Cheon. “It’s scary.”

Choe and Cheon were bound to joints on the pylon with a safety belt, the kind used when bungee jumping. They had been up there for more than four days. Because no movement besides sitting down and standing up was possible, they frequently found themselves losing feeling in their legs.

On Oct. 20, they were visited by Kim Jin-suk of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. In January 2011, Kim launched a 309-day protest on a crane at Hanjin Heavy & Industries shipyard in Busan, but the pylon’s conditions are even worse. At least she had a cockpit to duck into and avoid the elements, as well as a staircase and corridor where she could walk around a bit. The pylon offers no protection from the wind or rain and just enough space for the men to stretch out their legs. The empty spaces between the bars are blocked off by plywood rectangles measuring one by two meters.

“They may look like they have room, but it’s a very tight space,” Kim said. “If there are heavy winds or rain, it could be very dangerous.”

On Oct. 17, Hyundai Motor sent hired security workers up the pylon to bring Choe and Cheon down. No safety devices were put in place to break a fall.
“Both the temporary workers protesting up here and the security workers trying to bring us down will die if they fall,” Choe said. “You have to wonder if Hyundai Motor has any common sense at all.”

There is also the risk of electrocution: the pylon has a high-tension current running through it.

“The forecast is calling for rain on Monday,” said an official with the Hyundai Motor temporary workers’ union. “If there’s also lightning, there’s a danger of electrocution. We’re considering sending some insulated suits up.”

The same official worried about the plywood, too, saying it was compressed with adhesive and may break apart if it gets wet.

With these risks present, daily physical needs like eating and relieving oneself are hardly bearable. Choe acknowledged it was “embarrassing” to do such things in the open, but laughed it off. “It’s less comfortable than on the ground, but it’s doable,” he said.

While all this is going on, the automaker has been at work pressuring the men’s families. On the evening of Oct. 18, one day after they launched their protest, Cheon’s mother was visited at her Uiseong, North Gyeongsang province home by the president of his subcontractor firm and a Hyundai Motor employee. If Cheon came down from the pylon, he could get a full-time job, she was reportedly told.

Cheon said, “I called my mother and told her, ‘It will only be worse if I come down from here. I’ll come down later and we take a trip somewhere quiet.’ But she was still very worried.”

Cheon is also called several times a day by friends who say the Uiseong Police Station has been calling them and asking them to help talk him down.
What keeps Choe and Cheon going is the desire to work.

Choe, said bitterly “I often look down at the factory, and want to go in there with the people I worked and fought alongside, to do work and have a drink afterwards.”

“There are untold numbers of people who have suffered while Hyundai Motor has refused to accept the ruling to hire its temporary workers as full-time employees,” he continued.

“These are people who defy the law and hurt people in the process,” he added. “I can’t let them win.”   

  http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/556890.html 

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☞ 현대차 철탑농성 7일째.. “울산으로 모이자” 호소 (VOP, 10.23)
☞ [현장]‘비정규 인생’ 끝장내려 어둠을 가르고 철탑에 오르다 (VOP, 10.21)