South Korean government prepares to break Ssangyong occupation

By Terry Cook
16 July 2009

President Lee Myung-bak’s government has stepped-up preparations for a police assault aimed at breaking an eight-week occupation by around 1,000 workers at Ssangyong Motor’s Pyeongtaek plant in South Korea. The occupation began on May 22 when the management announced 2,646 layoffs, around 36 percent of its total workforce, as part of a court-supervised restructuring plan to meet the demands of creditors.

Last weekend, police moved in with forklifts to remove containers and other barriers from the plant’s four entrances. Workers had erected the barricades following a failed assault at the end of June by hundreds of company-hired thugs and non-striking workers backed by around 500 riot police.

Police have also built fences and checkpoints inside the gates and increased the number of officers around the plant. Two workers who attempted to resist the demolition of the barricades were arrested, as were a number of supporters demonstrating peacefully outside the plant.

A management spokesman admitted that the police had taken aerial surveillance photos of the plant to locate the whereabouts of the workers inside. A police spokesman told the media on Sunday: “In preparation for the crackdown, we’ve secured the gates.” Another police officer said: “We plan to gain full control of the plant and forcefully disperse the workers.”

Ssangyong occupation supporters call for public funds to save jobs

Only a small number of people—members of the workers’ families, some students and other supporters—are outside the plant. They have not been mobilised by the major unions but by the Ssangyong Joint Struggle Headquarters, a workers’ committee.

Over the weekend, the committee issued statements condemning the police preparations and arrests and demanding that the union covering the occupying workers, the Korean Metal Workers Union (KMWU) and its peak body, the Korean Council of Trade Unions (KCTU) immediately act on a promise to call a general strike if the government and employers moved to smash the occupation.

At a rally on July 4, KCTU chairman Jeong Jin-hoo urged the government not to “exacerbate the situation” by taking offensive action against the occupation and pledged to lead a general strike from “the very front with flags” if the government did so. That vow was so much hot air. Despite the advanced police preparations now underway, neither the KMWU nor the KCTU have mobilised any of their tens of thousands of members to back the occupation.

Since the occupation began, the unions have isolated it, restricting support to small protests outside the plant. When police and management thugs attacked the plant at the end of June, the occupiers were left to fight on their own.

The KMWU is working behind the scenes to end the occupation, appealing to the government and the company to put the layoffs on hold and accept cost-saving concessions. These include work sharing, short-time working and other measures that would drastically reduce workers’ wages. The union is asking for the company to be transformed into a public entity under the state-controlled Korea Development Bank, a major shareholder.

But the bank, together with China’s Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp, which owns 51 percent of the company, has been instrumental in pushing it into bankruptcy to impose the restructuring now underway and raise new loans worth 250 billion won ($US199.5 million). Creditors have warned that failure to carry through the restructuring and layoffs will result in liquidation.

For two decades, the KCTU and KMWU have played a pivotal role in imposing the demands of the banks and big business by isolating and betraying struggles throughout key industries, including auto, heavy engineering and transport.

If the company and government are allowed to defeat the Ssangyong workers it will embolden employers across all sectors to drive through a restructuring designed to offload the cost of the global capitalist crisis onto the backs of working people.

The struggle must be taken out of the hands of the unions, workers must rally independently to defend the occupation, and rank and file committees must be constructed in every workplace to mobilise the active support of the working class in Korea and internationally. Above all, this means fighting for an international socialist perspective that rejects the demands of the corporate elite and aims to reorganise society as a whole on the basis of social need, not private profit.

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Ssangyong occupation supporters speak to the WSWS
[July 16 2009]

Ssangyong occupation supporters speak to the WSWS

“If these workers fail, restructuring will become normal”

By a correspondent
16 July 2009

A World Socialist Web Site correspondent travelled to Pyeongtaek, South Korea where workers have occupied the Ssangyong Motor assembly plant since May 22, fighting mass layoffs (see main story). Our correspondent witnessed preparations by President Lee Myung-bak’s government and the company to storm the plant and disperse the workers.

Only a small group of people were outside the factory, mainly family members of the workers occupying the plant, together with some students and other supporters. Notably absent were any contingents organised by the unions, despite the increasing police presence.

The families and supporters were staring with worried looks at the entrance, inside which many riot police and the management people were already stationed. Occupying workers and red flags could be seen on the rooftop of the plant. Police buses, fire trucks and even ambulances were busy coming and going and two helicopters were flying around overhead. Supporters avoided even chanting slogans for fear of provoking immediate arrests.

A group of Ssangyong occupation supporters

Despite an extremely tense situation, in which police had been continuously taking photographs, a number of people spoke to the WSWS, but did not wish to be identified because of possible reprisals.

One woman said her husband—a Ssangyong worker—was inside the plant. As she worked during the week herself and cared for the children, she could only come to the plant on weekends. The last time she and her children had seen her husband, they could only speak to him through the wire fence because police prevented them from entering the plant.

She supported the occupation because the way that the company had dealt with the workers “was wrong and this had to be corrected”. She added: “The company’s policies are not for working people and I can only conceive that the employers’ logic is that the poor and the weak can go off and die.”

The union had offered the company compromises “that could benefit the company and workers alike but the management and the government only insist on sacking the workers and substituting them with irregular (casual) workers”. She warned: “This policy will lead to every worker being made into an irregular worker in the future.”

If her husband lost his job, “no matter how hard we would try to reduce our expenses, we would face a very difficult situation. In short it would break our family life.”

Another woman whose husband is inside the plant had just come back from a day-long protest in Seoul by families, students and other people in support of the occupation. She said workers at the plant had “worked hard, only to get a unilateral dismissal notice,” adding: “They are now fighting because they feel victimised and they are fighting to restore their rights.”

She said families “cannot hand any food to them (the occupiers) because the police just stop us. Children are also scared of the police and cry when they see their fathers through the plant’s surrounding fence. Last night I could not sleep a minute because there was a rumour that the police were going to launch an attack.”

Her family had faced hardship even before the layoffs because of poor pay at the plant. “We had been living a difficult life since my husband’s salary was not paid regularly,” she said. “From last December we were getting only 500,000 or 700,000 won [$US380-550] a month and even this was not for every month.”

She warned that if the occupation was defeated the company would be free to lay off more workers in the future, “because they don’t have any guarantee for secure jobs. I feel very sorry about this”.

A worker from Hyundai Motors, a 40-minute car drive away, said he and a few co-workers had hurried to the Ssangyong plant in the morning, having heard rumours of an imminent police attack. He condemned the media and the police for accusing Ssangyong workers of preparing violence and “even murder” because they would use sling shots to fight back if attacked by heavily armed police and company thugs. Whatever measures the workers took to defend themselves were “legitimate because they are striking and fighting to protect their livelihoods”.

The Hyundai worker added: “If the Ssangyong workers fail, it will have a devastating affect on the struggle of workers in other industrial sectors.” Commenting on the failure of the KCTU and KMWU to mobilise broad and active support for the occupation, he said that he was “speechless thinking that this struggle has come so far and now faces an all-out crackdown” without a major response. He confirmed that the Hyundai Motors union branch had ruled out participating in a strike and protest after company goons and police attacked the occupation toward the end of June. He believed that the union leadership “did not act from what is right but only in their own interests”.

An elderly couple whose son was inside the plant said they were worried and angry because of the activity of riot police and management personnel around the plant. They condemned those workers supporting the management for “adopting a highhanded attitude because they were not sacked this time around,” saying: “This is quite vicious behaviour when workers desperately needed to be united.”

An elderly man who had come to hand a donation to the workers’ families said he felt sorry for them because they had been deprived of any means to live and there was no welfare system in South Korea for support. Referring to the global crisis, he said: “How can the weak and the poor cope with this financial crisis when the government blames them for the situation? It [the government] does not consider any discussion with Ssangyong workers who have been struggling for over 50 days. They are not to blame for the crisis of the company; it was the government who sold this company to the SAIC [Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation] and let them exploit the workers.”

A student, a member of the National Student Parade, had participated in the one-day protest in Seoul. He said the economic crisis was not the fault of working people but financial speculators. He believed that SAIC had bought into Ssangyong Motor for immediate returns and caused the company’s bankruptcy by refusing to make any new investment.

The student warned: “If the Ssangyong workers fail in this struggle, restructuring will become a normal procedure for every other company. We cannot let this happen.” He criticised the “first conciliatory proposals of union to the company” as “not appropriate”.

Students had been told that the occupation was of no interest to them. Nevertheless, “many students are beginning to think about what is happening and asking what is the cause of it”.