CINA

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Impressions from yesterday's "national" protest rally of 'irregular' workers (sadly "only" 5,000 out of 8,000,000 paricipated) in front of Seoul's City Hall(*):

* Korea Times "reported" the following: ...the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, a radical labor umbrella group, held a rally at the plaza, calling for an end to discrimination between regular and non-regular workers, and more welfare benefits.
According to police estimates, about 3,000 construction workers and non-permanent employees from all industries took part in a laborers’ rally at the plaza, demanding the government guarantee all workers a minimum living standard, labor rights and job security.

 

More pics you can see here!

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Impressions from Bomun Market ('redevelopment' zone in Seoul/Seongbuk-gu/Seongbuk-dong), already authorized for the complete destruction:

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Impressions from last Friday's solidarity night (it took place in Myeong-dong "redevelopment" zone, in and in front of "Cinema Hof") to support the struggle of the female Hyundai Motors workers, who were sexual harassed on their workplace and later fired, after they brought their case to court:

More pictures you can see here: [10.14] Solidarity Night in Myeong-dong... (facebook)!

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Like in "about 1000 cities in 80 countries"(Spiegel Online, 10.15) also in Seoul protest rallies and demonstrations took place to support the "Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Together" movement. But unfortunately only 500 activists (300 in Yeouido under the motto "Occupy Yeouido" and 200 in front of Seoul Stn./dountown Seoul under the motto "Occupy Seoul"), later in the evening both groups gathered in front of Daehan-mun/Deoksu Palace for a final rally) joined the events...

 
While the participants of the Yeouido rally only demanded a "fairer" (capitalist) system without "greed and corruption" (but the system based on greed, resp. maximization of profits, and corruption^^) the protesters in downtown Seoul (the rally/demo ended in Myeong-dong's "redevelopment" zone) demanded finally "Smash Capitalism!".

What else? The (conservative/reactionary) newspaper JoongAng Ilbo already wrote on the same day "...police said that most of the groups participating in the Occupy Seoul rally are aggressive leftist groups..."(*). And so it was only "natural"(^^), that they - activists of several street vendors' organisations, disabled and homeless people, activists who are resisting the forced eviction(out of their homes and/or places of work), "irregular" workers etc... - demanded "Another system without discrimination, exploitation and oppression"!

Here some impressions from the "Occupy Seoul" rally/demonstration:

More pictures from the "Occupy Seoul" rally/demo you can see here: [10.15] "Occupy Seoul" (impressions) (facebook)!

* JoongAng Ilbo's entire crap you can read here: Seoul gets two ‘occupy’ rallies today!
 

Related articles/reports:
☞ S. Koreans hold 'Occupy Wall Street' protest in Seoul (Yonhap, 10.15)
☞ “여의도를 점령하라. 우리는 99%다” (Hankyoreh, 10.15)
☞ "돈이 사람을 잡아먹는다... 99%여, 서울을 점령하라!" (OMN, 10.15)
☞ 99%의 서울 점령, “자본주의는 고장났다” (NewsCham, 10.16)
☞ 'Occupy Together' 우천속 서울 곳곳에서 열려 (VoP, 10.16)
☞ Fiery Occupy Seoul peacefully fizzles out (Korea Herald, 10.16)  

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<지금까지 제안된 여러가지 15일 일정>
12:00 청계광장 (학생들이 중심, 드레스코드 검정)
13:00 여의도 증권가 (*)
14:00 서울역 ~ 명동 (행진포함, 빈곤철폐의 날 집회와 더불어서)
18:00 시청광장 (모두 함께 모여서 OCCUPY SEOUL!)

* complete pointless, because on the weekend (incl. Sat.) there is no one! The banks are closed (because of strong unions!!), the Nat'l Assambly is also deserted (because they don't like to 'work'^^!!) and nobody is living there...

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Like in the US and many other countries activists in Seoul are planning for next Saturday to "occupy" the capital to protest against "protest financial inequality" as they "will join the global movement and gather the voices of desperate Koreans" (Yonhap, 10.13). But there are a lot of other groups/organizations who also will use this day for their protest, but not just against the "bad effects of the capitalist society"... They just want to take the streets to FIGHT against CAPITALISM in keeping with the motto The (capitalist) system has no errors, the system IS the error!. 

Members of civic groups hold a press conference at Seoul Plaza in downtown Seoul, Wednesday, to announce a planned rally similar to the “Occupy Wall Street” protests. They will hold their first “Occupy Seoul” rally in Yeouido (*), Saturday, against financial firms criticized for making excessive profits at the sacrifice of consumers. (K. Times, 10.13)
Other social organizations also plan to have a rally at Seoul Plaza at the same time. All the groups will then gather at Seoul Plaza to hold an “Occupy Seoul” protest at 6 p.m. (Hankyoreh, 10.13)

* complete pointless, because on the weekend (incl. Sat.) there is no one! The banks are closed (because of strong unions!!), the Nat'l Assambly is also deserted (because they don't like to 'work'^^!!) and nobody is living there...

Related articles:
☞ Occupy Wall Street spreads to Seoul (JoongAng Ilbo, 10.13)
☞ 15일 서울 점거, 어떻게 되나? (NewsCham, 10.12)

 

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Here some impressions from Chungshin-dong (Seoul, Jongno District) 'redevelopment' zone:

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Today's (conservative/reactionary) JoongAng Ilbo reported the following:

Incheon-Seoul bus drivers strike

Workers at a major express bus company that carries 50,000 Incheon residents to Seoul daily went on strike yesterday, raising fears of crippled commutes and forcing Incheon officials to scramble to find alternative transportation for its residents.

The labor union of Samwha Express Company confirmed yesterday that its workers walked off the job at 5 a.m. to demand a bigger pay raise than the company has offered, suspending services of a total of 242 buses on 20 different lines - 75 percent of the total bus service between Incheon and Seoul.

Samwha, the union said, offered to raise the current 4,727 won hourly wage for drivers by just 3.5 percent instead of the 20 percent requested by the union. The union said it asked the company to increase the hourly wage to 5,700 won but Samwha offered just 4,845 won per hour and a reduction of working hours from 21 to 18 hours per day.

The company, meanwhile, said that its offer was fair because the average annual salary of its drivers was about 33 million won, which it said was 10 percent higher than salaries at other Incheon bus companies.

Samwha added that it would consider shutting down its entire Incheon-based operations if drivers don’t return to work.

“There is no doubt that we offer the best wages,” said Kim Jin-hyeon, a Samwha executive...

In July, the union went on strike after a dispute over delayed payments of drivers’ wages and to demand better working conditions.

The strike came to an end after two days when Samwha agreed to pay the delayed wages and promised to continue negotiations on other issues. The union said it had negotiated with the company nine times since Aug. 12 but failed to agree on any issue...

http://koreajoongangdaily.joinsmsn.com/news/article/html/620/2942620.html?cloc=joongangdaily|home|newslist1

Comment:

1. "Samwha offered 4,845 won (3 Euro/USD 4.09) per hour..." That's just a provocation!!
2. "Samwha offered... a reduction of working hours from 21 to 18 hours per day" What a f*cking bullshit? Nobody can work 21 resp. 18 hours a day!!

But possibly JoongAng Ilbo made a mistake(??) and wanted to write 'from 12 hours to 8 hours per day'... But with the reduction of the working hours there will be also a reduction of the payment! So the workers demand should be: "Reduction in working hours by full compensatory wage increases!!"

Related article:
☞ 삼화고속 버스노동자 총파업 돌입 (미디어충청, 10.11)