Protestors from the 1st General Strike Resolution Assembly for Blocking Privatization, Crushing Labor Oppression, and Achieving Victory in the Railroad Strike, block the road in front of Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul in subzero temperatures, Dec. 28. (by Kim Bong-gyu, staff photographer)
Striking railway workers are getting support from students and regular people tired of the government’s uncommunicative style
By Song Ho-kyun, Bong Jun-ho and Lee Jae-uk, staff reporters
“Do you hear the people sing? / Singing a song of angry men? / It is the music of a people / Who will not be slaves again! / When the beating of your heart / Echoes the beating of the drums / There is a life about to start / When tomorrow comes!”
At 3 pm on Dec. 28, about 300 students gathered in front of Hyundai Department Store in Sinchon, Seoul, and began singing in unison. Most of them were university students, but there were also some younger faces that might have belonged to high school students. Members of the group were wearing similar outfits - red gloves and scarves over black clothing.
As red flags flapped in the breeze, the students sang the song “Do You Hear the People Sing?” in Korean. The song, which is featured in the musical Les Miserables, is about the French revolution.
The idea for the flash mob came to Lee Ji-eun, 17, a student at Balgok High School in Uijeongbu. She wanted to support the general strike by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU). The event took place simultaneously in five cities around the country: Seoul, Busan, Daejeon, Daegu, and Gwangju.
At the event that took place in front of the Daegu Department Store in Daegu, someone even held a placard that said, “This song is dedicated to Marie Antoinette, who is from Daegu but lives in Seoul.” Marie Antoinette (the French queen who was killed during the French Revolution) is a nickname that netizens have given Korean President Park Geun-hye. It is a play on words, as the queen’s name sounds similar to a Korean expression meaning a failure to communicate.
“We are told that between 700 and 800 netizens took part in the event altogether. In addition to Seoul there were about 150 people in Busan and 100 people in Daegu,” Lee said. After singing the song for about three minutes with joyful expressions on their faces, the participants in the Seoul event headed to Seoul Plaza outside City Hall.
According to KCTU estimates, around 100,000 people took part in the 1st General Strike Resolution Assembly for Blocking Privatization, Crushing Labor Oppression, and Achieving Victory in the Railroad Strike, which was held at Seoul Plaza. What made it possible for the union to mobilize so many people was the wide base of popular support, which included students and regular citizens, as the flash mob showed.
“While we are not able to provide an official estimate, our understanding is that approximately half of the people attending the rally were not union members but ordinary people,” said KTCU spokesperson Jeong Ho-hee.
Korean citizens from various segments of society including lawyers and students held pre-rallies and chanted slogans expressing their support for the railroad strike and their desire for democracy to be restored.
At about 2 in the afternoon, around 120 lawyers who are members of MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society gathered in front of the Bosingak belfry in Seoul’s Jongno district, and held up a banner that said, “There is no injustice that can defeat justice.” They also had placards that said, “From the Courtroom to the Street.”
“I believe that MINBYUN’s activity - advocating the basic human rights in the constitution and calling for the restoration of democracy - is the way to carry out the mission of a lawyer, which is to bring about social justice,” said MINBYUN Chairman Jang Ju-young. “We have come to this meeting in order to connect with people who want democracy to be restored.”
Pre-rallies were held by about 300 university students - the leading players in the “How are you nowadays?” craze - in front of the Korea Development Bank at Cheonggye 2-ga Street and by around 500 members of the Korea Teachers’ and Education Workers’ Union (KTU) at Tapgol Park. Next, the groups converged on Seoul Plaza.
“The Park Geun-hye administration is treating a legal railway workers’ strike as illegal and rashly issuing arrest warrants for the leaders of the labor union,” said KTU General Secretary Byeon Seong-ho. “If the administration does not take its knife from the necks of the workers and the people, we will have to become knives and bring this administration down.”
Holding placards saying “Teachers Aren’t Okay Either,” “Stop the Disaster of Privatization,” and “Down with the Uncommunicative President,” teachers shouted the slogan, “Stop repressing the KTU! Victory for the railroad strike!”
The ordinary citizens that the Hankyoreh reporter met at the rally at Seoul Plaza were unanimous in their criticism of President Park’s my-way-or-the-highway management style. “Before, I wasn’t very interested when labor unions went on strike, but this time I think the union has a valid reason for the strike. It wants to provide the Korean people with safe, cheap railroad service,” said homemaker Jeong Seong-mi, 47. “I don’t understand why the Park administration keeps trying to privatize the railroads even though the Korean people don’t want this to happen.”
The National Intelligence Service decided to go all out with its surprise release yesterday of 2007 inter-Korean summit minutes that had previously been classified. The whole ordeal was carried out like a military operation, without any decorum toward a former president, the late Roh Moo-hyun, without any of the conventional legal reasoning on designated presidential records, and without any concern for a process of bipartisan political consensus.
There is no need to reiterate just how illegal this kind of political interference by the NIS is. This is yet another example of scandalous behavior after its meddling in last year’s presidential election, only this case is far more ostentatious. This kind of brazen, overt move would be impossible without the approval - or even order - of the Blue House. That is why President Park Geun-hye must be held accountable for the NIS’s actions.
The reigniting of the controversy over remarks made at the 2007 summit is inextricable from the efforts to head off any questions over the legitimacy of Park’s election. The Saenuri Party’s desperate attempts to prevent a parliamentary audit of the NIS’s election-time actions and the NIS’s own disclosure of the records both have the basic goal of shielding her. In view of the seriousness of the situation, the relationship between the president and the NIS, and the Blue House’s micromanagement of affairs, it is impossible to believe the Blue House was not involved.
Also noteworthy is the timing of the disclosure, which came right after Park first broached the possibility of a parliamentary investigation. Yesterday, she declared that she had “not given the NIS any kind of help or received any help from it during the last election.” She also waved off questions about an investigation, saying it was “a matter for the National Assembly to discuss, not the President.” Far from denouncing the NIS’s political interference, she actually seemed to be throwing her support behind it. This contrasts sharply with her behavior at a June 24 meeting of the Blue House senior secretariat, when she called the improper payment of government subsidies a “criminal act” and demanded that comprehensive steps be taken in response. She apparently considers the NIS’s interference in a presidential election to be a less important issue than wrongful payment of subsidies.
Not only do Park’s statements not reflect the facts, they also make no sense at all. With their charges of violation of the Public Official Election Act, prosecutors have already affirmed that the aim of the NIS’s online operation during the election was to help Park’s chances for the presidency. It doesn’t matter how much help they gave, or how much it contributed to her win. What the public wants from Park now is an answer on just how she sees this case as the country’s leader, and what she plans to do to put a stop to this kind of political meddling by the NIS. Her response was a total non sequitur.
Her argument that an investigation is a matter for politicians to decide and not something for the Blue House to intervene in is also poorly founded. The logic may seem sound, but it is merely a way of trying to squeeze the administration out of its tight spot. It’s also cowardly to pass everything on to parliament as though she weren’t there, when the very issue of her election’s legitimacy is posing an obstacle to an investigation.
Park really should have resolved the election meddling and inter-Korean summit transcript issues before she visits China on June 27. Instead, she made the mind-boggling choice to release the transcript of a former President’s summit. It’s hard to imagine what kind of serious dialogue she can now expect to have with the leadership in Beijing. Past administrations that abandoned reason and common sense tended to face a rocky road. The black cloud of this huge misjudgment may well continue to follow Park even after she leaves office.
Police arrest one member of the striking Korean Railway Workers’ Union who was resisting the police’s advance at the offices of the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions in the Kyunghyang newspaper building in central Seoul, Dec. 22. (by Kim Bong-gyu, staff photographer)
Umbrella trade union KCTU sets Dec. 28 for a general strike
By Jeon Jong-hwi, Im In-tack and Lee Jung-gook, staff reporters
The Park Geun-hye administration, which has maintained an “uncommunicative and proud of it” approach on contentious social issues, is ramping up its use of force and rejecting dialogue.
In the latest development, police stormed the offices of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) on Dec. 22, the fourteenth day of an ongoing strike against railway privatization. It was the first time authorities had been sent into the KCTU since it was legalized in 1999.
The police were there to execute arrest warrants for nine members of the leadership for the Korean Railway Workers’ Union (KRWU), but the individuals in question weren’t there. Instead, the 136 KCTU officials and members who fought back against the police were rounded up and arrested.
After convening an emergency meeting of its central committee, the KCTU declared a “genuine campaign to bring down the Park administration,” with a general strike to start on Dec. 28.
The government’s attack on the KCTU was a signal of how anxious it is to end the KRWU strike, which has drawn out to become the longest in South Korean railway history. As popular support for the anti-privatization strike remains high, the situation appears poised to escalate into a more general anti-privatization campaign in areas like healthcare and education. With the “front lines” of the privatization furor now parked on the railway, the government appears to be trying to break them down as quickly as possible.
Previously, Park called the strike a “groundless action that shows a lack of trust in the government’s promise not to privatize.” Police and prosecutors promised to enforce the law rigorously.
“There seems to have been a strategic decision by the hard line bureaucrats in the Blue House,” said Cho Hee-yeon, a professor at Sungkonghoe University’s graduate school of NGO studies. “Crushing the privatization strike is the only way to keep the unions in check, and they would also be able to push the next phase of their policy.”
“In short, they see it as a great opportunity,” Cho said.
Indeed, unions are among the best organized areas in South Korean society for speaking out on social issues.
Another of the government’s aims is to draw a clear line that extends beyond the KRWU to all members of the labor community who oppose the administration’s policies. While the KCTU, KRWU, and civil society in general have proposed setting up a “social dialogue” framework to address the key issue in the privatization furor - the establishment of a KORAIL subsidiary - the government’s response has instead been an ostentatious use of force. In effect, it has shown that it intends to respond to the debate by putting physical force ahead of dialogue.
“The government should be the ones initiating dialogue,” said a KRWU source on condition of anonymity. “Instead, they’ve issued what amounts to a declaration of war. They refuse to even recognize the body that is the supreme representative of unions, viewing it as an enemy instead.”
Some are saying the administration’s militant response is a reaction to having its legitimacy called into question. From this position, the actions are intended to break a deadlock that has been going for nearly a year since Park took office.
It’s a year that has seen one problem after another for the administration. Already facing a challenge to its legitimacy due to the election interference by the National Intelligence Service and the military’s Cyber Command, it has had to deal with a backlash over backpedaling on its basic old age pension election pledges, the privatization controversy, and charges of “targeting” former Prosecutor General Chae Dong-wook.
“These actions come in the context of questions about the administration’s legitimacy, after it emerged that the election that brought it into office was unfair, along with a loss of popular support over the backpedaling on election pledges,” said Catholic University of Korea professor Cho Don-moon.
“They can’t win the people over, and they’re trampling on the right to pursue stability and happiness,” Cho added. “What happened today shows just how weak the administration’s legitimacy is.”
The KCTU’s declaration of a campaign to “bring down the administration” comes two years and one month after the ruling Saenuri Party (NFP) single-handedly pushed the South Korea-US Free Trade Agreement through the National Assembly in Nov. 2011. All that’s left now is a clash between giants.
Police spray water mixed with tear gas as they attempt to forcibly enter the offices of the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions in the Kyunghyang newspaper building in central Seoul, Dec. 22. The police were seeking the Korean Railway Workers’ Union leadership, including union head Kim Myung-hwan, who had already fled. (by Park Jong-shik, staff photographer)
Government and workers have different positions on possibility that separation of one line would lead to privatization
By Noh Hyun-woong, staff reporter
As part of the government’s response to the controversy over the privatization of the railroad, various officials - including the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport; the Minister of Strategy and Finance; and the Prime Minister - have stepped forward to reiterate that the separation of the Suseo KTX Line does not represent privatization. But the Korean Railway Workers’ Union and civic groups refuse to believe the government’s claims, insisting that this is the first step toward privatization.
The government’s position is that privatization can be prevented by mobilizing the available methods, which include placing limitations on the transfer of company shares to private investors and revoking the operating license. According to the government’s proposal, Korail will have a 41% share in the new operator of the Suseo KTX line, which will begin operations in early 2016. Private investors are not able to purchase the remaining 59% of the company’s stocks either; stock participation is limited to public corporations such as the National Pension Fund.
In addition, a clause is included in the company’s articles of association prohibiting the sale of publicly controlled shares to the private sector. The articles of association also mandate that the board of directors must pass a special resolution (2/3 of directors present, 2/3 in favor) for any sale of shares. In addition, if Korail has an operating surplus, it can increase its shares by 10 percentage points each year. This would suggest that Korail could eventually buy all of the shares of the new operator depending on its performance.
Land, Infrastructure, and Transport Minister Suh Seoung-hwan even said that if public corporations sell their stock to the private sector, the ministry would revoke the new company’s right to operate the railroad.
But the railroad union sees things differently. The union argues that it would essentially be impossible for Korail to turn a profit if it splits the KTX market, the most profitable part of the business. From the labor union’s point of view, there is no chance that Korail could increase its share in the new company as the government has claimed. The union also believes that there would be a variety of ways to get around the government’s measures to prevent the private sector from investing in the new company, such as buying shares in a fund.
The union has some evidence to back up its argument. The law firm Sejong was commissioned by Korail to prepare a review of the government’s proposal. The law firm concluded that the privatization prevention plan put forward by the government is seriously flawed. It is likely that the quorum requirement for board meetings convened to sell shares violates commercial law, and it is also probable that the restriction on the operating license is unconstitutional, since it is an administrative tactic that wields the government’s right to license activities as a weapon against stock transfers in the private sector.
The second point under debate is the effect of setting up a new operator. The government believes that introducing a new operator will result in an improvement of Korail’s loose management and will lead to an improvement in the quality of railroad service. According to the government, the laxness of Korail’s management is so severe that the company is running an average yearly deficit of 570 billion won (US$536 million). In addition, the government has argued, Korail’s accounting is opaque and there is no other comparison company, making it hard to expect any improvement. The argument is that introducing a new operator would provide a model that Korail’s management could be compared to, and that this would also lead to more efficient management.
However, the opposite case can also be made. Opponents say that splitting off a new operator from Korail, which is saddled with a substantial debt because of the government’s failed policies, would result in more problems at the company. According to documents that Korail prepared before its board of directors meeting on Dec. 10, at which it was decided to set up a new operator, the creation of the new operator is estimated to reduce Korail’s revenue by an approximate yearly average of 500 billion won.
In addition, opponents argue that the government has only offered a vague explanation of how creating a new operator would help normalize Korail’s management. Since Korail keeps losing money, the government is basically saying, we should split up the company and see what happens. In fact, according to the National Assembly Research Service’s (NARS) Dec. 20 analysis of the government’s plan to develop the railroad business, investing in a separate company without devising any fundamental measures for normalizing railroad operations is not enough to prevent Korail’s deficit from continuing to grow.
For these reasons, the argument that the government’s creation of the new railroad company will eventually lead to railway privatization is gaining strength. In particular, the NARS analysis predicted that splitting a line that is expected to be highly profitable into a separate company would worsen operating conditions at Korail and make it difficult to keep the railroads public.
If efforts to make Korail’s management more efficient by prioritizing profitability end in failure, the only remaining option would be selling the railroad to the private sector. In fact, the government and Korail agreed in theory during the railroad development measures workshop in July to shut down eight unprofitable railroad lines.
Leaders of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions chant at a news conference Tuesday to denounce Sunday’s police raid on its headquarters. (Yonhap News)
The railway union’s strike continued to grow Tuesday, bringing the Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union into the fray as the police sought a detention warrant for its chief Kim Jeong-hoon.
Kim was taken into custody on Sunday during the police’s attempt to arrest railway union leaders from the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions’ headquarters in Seoul.
Although large number of unionists were taken into custody for blocking the police from entering the KTCU office, a detention warrant has been requested for Kim only.
Despite deploying thousands of police officers and spending most of the day on the raid, the railway union leaders were not found at the KTCU office, fueling criticism of incompetence and claims that the Park Geun-hye administration was establishing a police state.
The raid has also prompted the KTCU to declare war against the administration and plans to go on a general strike from Dec. 28 to call for the president’s resignation.
The more moderate Federation of Korean Trade Unions has also declared that it would join the strike, saying that the situation was not limited to the KTCU.
Together, the two umbrella unions amount to about 1.7 million members.
The railway union has staged a general strike since Dec. 9 in protest of state-run train operator KORAIL’s plans to set up a subsidiary to operate a new KTX bullet train route, saying that the measure was a step toward railway privatization.
Passenger train operations have since dropped to about 70 percent of normal levels, while freight train operations dropped to 30.1 percent.
The political parties have also taken up sides in the railway strike union, stepping up their attacks against each other following Sunday’s raid.
“The railway strike, which was aimed at protecting the iron bowl, is becoming a political strike as the forces that deny the election result have formed a combined front with the railway union,” ruling Saenuri Party floor leader Rep. Choi Kyung-hwan said Tuesday. “Iron bowl” is a term referring to vocations with high job security.
He added that the main opposition Democratic Party was the “original” instigator in reforming the railway system, citing related developments from the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations.
“(I) emphasize again that hard-line nongovernmental organizations and the KTCU, which are transforming the railway strike into a campaign to overturn the administration, cannot stand above the law.”
Meanwhile, the DP continued its attack on the government and the ruling party.
“The Park Geun-hye administration is now against the common people. Railway and health care privatization cannot be accepted under any circumstances,” DP floor leader Rep. Jun Byung-hun said.
“President Park Geun-hye’s uncommunicativeness is pushing laborers to the brink. It causes talks to stop, justifies the police forcing their way into the KTCU and becomes the order for oppressing KORAIL workers.”
DP secretary-general Rep. Park Ki-choon also claimed that Park’s plans to offer a special pardon early next year was an attempt at appeasing the public.
Prime Minister Chung Hong-won played down the railway union’s claims of railway privatization, saying that it was not an issue.
“The government has repeated several times its position that the railway will not be privatized. The railway union should stop repeating claims that have already been accepted, and return to work immediately,” Chung said at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting.
Although it failed to reach its goal of one million participants, more than 100,000 [ko] were reported to be present till late afternoon. Although police estimate the total number barely reached 20,000, some disputed the number by pointing out that 13,000 riot police were mobilized for the event.
One image making the rounds online purportedly of the strike turned out to actually be from 2010. Nevertheless, plenty of dramatic photos showing the scale of the main protest in Seoul Plaza circulated the web:
These citizens were not able to enter the plaza as a wall of police bus blocked their way. So instead, the plaza's surrounding roads were fully packed with these people.
It is hard to guess the real scale of the protest against railway privatization by merely looking at photos. But I will post these three photos, which show protesters who are “in” the Plaza. Please take into account that these are only 70 percent of the total participants.
Seoul Plaza is already fully packed.
This is a photo of the No. 6 exit of the City Hall subway station [which leads to the Seoul Plaza]
Though labor unions overwhelmingly counted the largest participation, various non-labor groups also hosted minor protests today, including students, lawyers, media workers [ko] and a particularly unique group, the newly launched KOCA (Korean Online Communities Alliance) [ko], an association of the nation's major online community sites.
In Seoul, Daejeon, Changwon and Pusan, young protesters, especially students, took turns standing on stage and spelling out “the reasons why they can't be okay” [ko] from 12 p.m. to roughly around 3 p.m.
A high school girl said some students of Gaepo High School may get reprimanded for posting hand-written posters. She said “we will be feeling ‘fine’ only after expressing our thoughts”.
Flash mobs (at 3 p.m.)
Flash mobs of citizens singing the revolutionary anthem “Do you hear the people sing?” from the musical “Les Misérables” were held in Seoul, Pusan, Gwangju, Daejeon and Daegu. Here is a video of a flash mob which took place near the Yonsei University in Seoul:
Civil rights lawyers’ protest (from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.)
Civil rights lawyers held a protest at 2 p.m. at Bosingak Bell Pavilion, and around 3 p.m. they marched towards the Seoul Plaza.
Under the slogan of “From the courtroom to the streets” and “There is no injustice that wins the justice”, these lawyers are gathering at Bosingak to call for democracy. This shows how far our democracy and common sense have fallen.
Mass strike by labor groups (from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.)
Before joined by other groups, labor unions held a fierce demonstration at Seoul Plaza against the government's decision to crack down on fired railway workers and labor leaders.
I give them a round of applause for their strong alliance – many groups, even KLUC [Korea Labor Union Congress] have joined, calling out “We will protect our railway system by having a general strike by Korean Confederation of Trade Unions.”
(as of 2:57 p.m.) The Construction Labor Union is marching to Seoul Plaza from Youngpung Bookstore. I can't see where their line ends.
Main rally
A main demonstration was scheduled to take place around 4 p.m., but Seoul Plaza was already packed with protesters from around 2 p.m.
The photo on the left shows Seoul City Hall Plaza at 1:30 p.m. and the right is taken at 2:55 p.m. Now there is no room for extra feet.
South Korea’s defense ministry said its cyberwarfare agents broke political neutrality by criticizing opposition lawmakers online, part of a wider scandal about government agencies’ activities during the presidential election last December.
Baek Nak-jong, the chief investigator of a probe into the military’s Cyber Warfare Command, said Thursday the investigation found 2,100 online postings praising or blasting specific parties or lawmakers among 286,000 posts written by its psychological-warfare unit since the command’s foundation in January 2010 until Oct. 15 this year.
The mission of the psychological-warfare unit is to counter propaganda and online rumors from North Koreaon issues that include the sinking of a South Korean corvette in 2010 attributed to but denied by the North.
Mr. Baek denied that the messages about South Korean politicians and political parties were designed to influence the presidential election last December in President Park Geun-hye’s favor, an allegation that has caused a political mud fight in Seoul this year.
Specific names of opposition politicians were mentioned in the 2,100 postings, Mr. Baek said, “but not with the goal of political interference.” Linking politicians with North Korea is highly sensitive in South Korea, which remains technically at war with its northern neighbor.
Reuters
People shout slogans during a candle-light demonstration demanding an apology from South Korean President Park Geun-hye to the nation, and calling for the resignation of National Intelligence Service (NIS) chief Nam Jae-joon in central Seoul August 10, 2013.
In June, prosecutors indicted a former spy-agency chief for orchestrating a Twitter smear campaign against government critics. The chief, Won Sei-hoon, and the agency have said the messages were a part of their normal psychological warfare operations againstNorth Korea, the line also maintained by the defense ministry.
The agency has also announced a set of internal reforms, which critics have called insufficient.
The defense ministry has asked prosecutors to charge 11 officials of the psychological-warfare unit for the breach of political neutrality, according to the investigator.
Mr. Baek said the investigators couldn’t find proof of coordination between the defense ministry and the national spy agency. He added that the head of the psychological-warfare unit said he acted without orders from his superiors.
Kim Han-gil, the leader of the largest opposition Democratic Party, said Friday the results were “offensive to the people” and urged a fresh investigation.
Some pundits have questioned how much impact the alleged campaign on Twitterand other online forumscould have had in Ms. Park’s presidential victory, particularly as polls showed her main support came from older voters less familiar with social media.
Ms. Park has denied involvement and said the government will enact additional measures to ensure impartiality after the probes are over.
Doubts about the government’s online psychological activity are likely to linger as proving secret agencies’ activities will be difficult in court, according to Park Chan-un, a human-rights lawyer and professor at Hanyang University in Seoul.
“It’s bound to uncover just the tip of the iceberg,” he said.
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