Instead of Meeting the Demands of the Striking Railway Workers, The Government
is Sending Now the Riot Cops
Following today's S. Korean(of course bourgeois) semi-official news agency Yonhap reported:
Striking railway workers begin to disperse following police threat
Thousands of railway workers who had been rallying in eastern Seoul for the past two days began to disperse Thursday following the threat of a police crackdown, union officials said.
About 6,000 unionists from the state-run Korean Railroad Corp. (KORAIL) were leaving a train base in eastern Seoul in smaller groups to rally in different places as directed by the union leadership, the officials said.
Some unionists, mostly senior drivers, have already informed the company of their intention to return to work, raising hope for an earlier normalization of railway operations. Many others are expected to follow suit.
The move came after police threatened to send troops to disperse striking railway workers, calling the collective action illegal.
"We have yet to decide on the timing, but will soon put public forces at the site of the strike," an official at the National Police Agency said on condition of anonymity.
Another police source said the deployment would be made in the evening at the earliest to disrupt the walkout.
The threatened police measure is now ineffective in Seoul with the voluntary dispersal of striking unionists, but thousands of others at sit-in rallies at regional bases are still under pressure.
Police obtained court-issued warrants to arrest 11 union leaders on charges of orchestrating the illegal strike.
About 12,800 unionists, almost half of the 25,510 members of the union, went on strike in the early hours of Wednesday, a holiday in South Korea, despite a government warning of a crackdown on illegal strikes by public workers.
They demand higher pay, better working conditions and reinstatement of fired colleagues.
The National Labor Relations Commission said Tuesday it would arbitrate the strike, mandating a 15-day cooling off period by unionists. The commission's decision to arbitrate makes the railway workers' strike illegal.
Unionists continued to strike for a second day Thursday as overnight negotiations to end the strike broke down with no progress.
The impact of the strike began to be felt Thursday morning as people went back to work and students started school after the holiday.
In the capital area, the strike curtailed subway services operated by the company by 30 percent of the normal level, leaving many of the country's train commuters stranded on crowded platforms during the morning rush hour.
Subway operations between Seoul and the western satellite city of Incheon fell to the 40 percent of normal.
KORAIL operates the country's national passenger and freight railways and jointly operates three subway lines with Seoul Metro Subway.
In Daejeon, 164 kilometers south of Seoul, the number of high-speed KTX trains passing through the city was cut to 48 from 100, forcing passengers to use express buses instead.
Tickets for KTX trains from Seoul to Busan, the country's second-largest city, were sold out in the morning hours of the day, except for seats in business class, because of the smaller number of trains in service.
No official data on losses from the strike are available yet, but the nation's container, cement and oil companies were hit hard, according to company officials.
Government officials said about half of the container-carrying trains from Busan to Seoul were canceled.
http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20060302/610000000020060302155321E2.html
Tomorrow's(3.3) Korea Times:
Rail Workers Break Up to Avert Crackdown
Here you can read a article(aeh~ better said: baiting) in the
ultra-reactionary Chosun Ilbo:
Commuter Nightmare on Second Day of Rail Strikes
And here you can read what the - also very right-wing - JoongAng Ilbo
is writing today:
Rail snarl enters 3rd day, no sign of a settlement
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