April 21, 1999
| | |
| ||
| April 21, 1999 | atimes.com | |
| ||
| The Koreas Seoul subway workers in biggest strike since Hyundai Motor Seoul - Seoul's subway workers launched an unlimited strike Monday after overnight talks broke downover the city government plans to cut wages and lay off a fifth of the transit system's staff. The strike is the largest in South Korea since Hyundai MotorCo. unions all but shut down the country's largest automaker forthree months last summer to protest against job cuts. After the walkout by 10,000 subway workers, partial strikeswere reported at eight other companies whose unions areaffiliated with the subway union. Among the targets were DacomCorp., South Korea's second largest phone company, and KoreaElectric Power Corp., the state-run power monopoly. Revived labor militancy is causing concern for the Koreangovernment, which is trying to portray the country in a morebusiness-friendly light to encourage foreign investment. Joblessness tripled in the past year, reaching 8.7 percent in February, and the economy shrank almost 6 percent. The Korea Confederation of Trade Unions, the second largestlabor group, predicted big repercussions from the subway strike.''Twenty-two other unions, including Dacom Corp., will followsuit,'' said Lee Kap Yong, the KCTU president. ''By April 26,80,000 union members in 35 unions will down tools." Commuters pushed through subway turnstiles Monday morning tofind fewer, more crowded trains, with management at the controls.About 5,000 police were deployed around station entrances tomaintain order. The Seoul government plans to reduce the subway work forceto 9,414 from 11,492. The system currently has 85 employees perkilometer of track, compared with 46 for London and 66 for Tokyo.Management also wants to increase the workload to 20 days amonth from 18 and offer loans instead of free education forchildren of staff. The subway system lost 345 billion won ($283 million) lastyear and has 3.5 trillion won of debt. At Dacom, about 1,000 of 2,300 unionized workers stayed offthe job to protest against a government move that would clear theway for a takeover of the company by LG Group. No servicedisruptions were reported. LG is currently allowed to own no more than 5 percent ofDacom directly, though Dacom officials say LG's effectiveshareholding, including the holdings of companies allied to it,tops 30 percent. Such reshuffling of corporate assets is in keeping with thegovernment's program to encourage the largest conglomerates tofocus on a few core activities. The union fears that an LG Groupabsorption of Dacom will lead to job cuts or replacement ofexisting staff by people displaced from LG. (Bloomberg) | |||||||||
 |
|
Front | China | Southeast Asia | Japan | Koreas | India/Pakistan | Central Asia/Russia | Oceania Business Briefs | Global Economy | Asian Crisis | Media/IT | Editorials | Letters | Search/Archive |
back to the top ©1999 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd. |
