Korea - Education Support, Hospital and other Public and Transport Workers Join the April 24 General Strike! - email solidarity messages can be sent to Intl Dept Kptu kptu.intl@gmail.com

On April 24, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) will go on general strike against the Park Geun-hye government and its anti-labour, anti-people people policies. Park’s government is continuing its attack on the public sector and all workers, seeking to weaken public pensions, cut public workers’ benefits and rights, stimulate competition through performance-based  pay, and privatise healthcare, transport and other need public services. The government is also pushing a ‘basic plan on precarious work’ that will expand precarious employment and essentially force it on all workers. At the same time, the government is refusing to move forward with a fare investigation of the sinking of the Sewol Ferry that happened year ago, willfully turning its back on the families of the some 300 victims and repressing their desperate protests with water canons and arrests.

Korean workers, among them the members of the Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union (KPTU), are striking to protest all of these measures,. KPTU education workers (members of KPTU’s Education Solidarity Division) will be at the forefront, striking on the 24^th against the government’s precarious worker policy and calling for legislation and funding that will make possible secure employment and decent work in schools and other public institutions. KPTU hospital workers (Seoul National University Hospital, Kyungpook University Hospital) will join them, protesting the commercialisation of healthcare and repression against unions who stand up to it. These groups will be joined by other KPTU workers employed in sectors that range from private transport to public utilities. 

Seoul National University Hospital Workers’ will begin their strike a day early on April 23. KPTU EdSol members will join other public sector precarious workers in a pre-rally before the main strike protest on April 24. Before these actions, on April 21, KPTU members in safety-related jobs (transport, utilities, healthcare, etc.) are holding an ‘Action Day for Public Safety’, calling for a just resolution to the Sewol tragedy and the regulation of capitalist greed needed to create a truly safe society. More news to follow!

E-mail solidarity messages can be sent to Intl Dept Kptu kptu.intl@gmail.com  

임월산 (Wol-san Liem)

국제국장
민주노총 공공운수노조
Director of International Affairs
Korean Public Service and Transport Workers' Union (KPTU)Tel: +82 (0)70 4393 0335 Fax: +82 (0)2 497 0444