User ID.
Password
Register
Join our newsletter
National
Home > News > National
Labor leaders arrested for illegal rally
Police today arrested two leaders of a radical trade union group for staging an illegal protest against new labor regulations.

About 600 members of the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions -- one of Korea's umbrella labor groups -- held a demonstration in front of the National Assembly building on Tuesday.

Violent protestors clashed with riot police as they tried to enter the Assembly building and attempted to set police buses on fire. They blocked the road causing traffic congestion.

The government-led labor bills passed the parliamentary labor committee last week.

Police arrested its vice president Huh Yong-gu and organization director Park Min for violating the demonstration law. Another 25 members were booked without detention.

The KCTU argued that the police were excessively suppressing their demonstration rights without a justifiable reason.

"We will continue to fight against the retrogressive labor bills despite police oppression of the leadership," the labor group said in a press release today.

The radical labor group has been under fire from the public over its disruptive protests and strikes over the past few months.

Following strong assertion of its hard-liners, the KCTU has called for a sixth general strike beginning Nov. 15.

Striking unionists demand the government immediately scrap its new labor regulations and better protect temporary workers.

The labor bills had been signed off by representatives from labor unions, employers and the government on Sept. 11 without the participation of the KCTU.

The three parties had agreed to delay two of the most controversial measures -- excluding full-time union officers from company payrolls and permitting multiple trade unions at a single company -- until the end of 2009.

The KCTU, however, wants immediate implementation of the multiple union system and insists that the issue of paying full-time union officers should be left to individual companies.

The labor group is planning more demonstrations and has vowed to keep up its general strike, as the Assembly prepares to settle the labor bills in the upcoming plenary session this week.

By Shin Hae-in (hayney@heraldm.com)



2006.12.13