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Today's Kyunghyang Shinmun published the following editorial:

3 Years after the Ssangyong Motors Clash and the Real Labor Environment

The Republic of Korea is a sports powerhouse that sweeps medals along with the world's super powers such as the U.S. and China at every Olympic Games, and is also an

economic power boasting, at every chance, of an economy ranking in the world's top 10. Just looking at these external factors, we could say that Korea is an advanced

nation.

However, if we turn our eyes to labor issues, the Korean society is still far from international standards and common sense. This is because Korea is still a country where a female worker has to risk her life and stage a sit-down atop a gigantic steel crane for a year, four seasons, just to put the breaks on layoffs.

It is also a country where service-providing gangsters hired by the management violently swing their clubs and iron pipes at the workers on strike, a country where

governmental authority overlooks and acts as accessories to this serviced violence.

The workers in this country 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, claiming that plant operations have not fully recovered.

The bigger tragedy lies in the fact that laid-off workers who chose to resign from the company are wandering about as temporary day-workers being labeled as ex-

Ssangyong Motors workers. And this has led to the death of many workers and their family.

The wife of a retired worker died while he went to earn money, and his twelve-year-old daughter spent the night by her mother's body holding her five-year-old sibling.

There have been many workers and family who have taken their own lives due to the injuries and psychological pain from the violent suppression of the workers. Thus the

number of people who have practically been "killed by society" has reached 22 so far.

Yesterday marked the third anniversary of the agreement that settled the Ssangyong Motors clash. Han Sang-kyun, the former head of the Ssangyong Motors chapter of the

Korean Metal Workers' Union who led the strike at the time, was released after 3 years in prison.

He claimed, "Many workers and their family died after the strike because they could not see hope in the despair that the company, Ssangyong Motors, locked them in, and

also because society did not care and turned away from them. I couldn't read the domestic news section in the newspaper for a while because I was afraid I'd read of another death."

Ssangyong Motors should carry out the details of the agreement with its workers and stop attempts to break up the labor union. Furthermore, they should give a sincere

apology for causing serious physical and psychological damage to the workers and willingly provide alternatives to help cure them.

The political circle, which formed a special committee on the Ssangyong Motors incident, should investigate the details of the anti-labor policies that the Lee Myung-bak

government has made and hold them responsible.

Most importantly, we must reach out to the workers with hands of solidarity saying, "No matter what, never lose hope, and let us share the suffering." We cannot let another

victim be added to the existing 22.

http://english.khan.co.kr/khan_art_view.html?artid=201208071356027&code=790101