WORKERS AROUND THE WORLD
By Andy McInerney
SOUTH
KOREA
Government strike breaking
The south Korean government sent riot police against
thousands of striking bank workers on Dec. 27. The next day,
the workers were forced to settle their strike against a
massive bank merger.
The strike began on Dec. 22 when bank workers at south
Korea's two major commercial banks, Kookmin and Housing &
Commercial Bank, walked off the job to protest the banks'
merger. The merger plans were fallout from the 1998 Asian
financial crisis, when companies across south Korea went
bankrupt.
The merger's biggest backers were the government of Kim
Dae Jung, the International Monetary Fund, and the banks'
largest shareholders--Goldman Sachs from the United States
and ING Insurance International BV of the Netherlands.
After the walkout on Dec. 22, some 15,000 workers occupied
the offices of a banking research center in Ilsan, four miles
from Seoul. Riot police and helicopters immediately
surrounded the sit-in, and the government issued orders for
the arrest of union leaders. The government threatened to
fire striking workers.
The workers held firm until the Dec. 27 attack. The
government launched the attack on the eve of a sympathy
strike threat by other banking workers.
While the morale of the Kookmin and Housing &
Commercial Bank workers remained high, the attack apparently
had an effect on the other banking workers. On Dec. 28, few
of the workers' sister and brother unionists backed the
sympathy strikes, and the workers voted to return to
work.
"There should be no punishment, criminal or civil, toward
the union members," a Dec. 28 union statement warned. "If
this demand is not met, we will strike again early next
year."
The number of strikes increased in 2000 by 27 percent,
according to a Dec. 26 Asia Pulse report. The number of
workers taking part in strikes doubled, from 90,000 in 1999
to 180,000 in 2000.
ARGENTINA
Prisoners'
hunger strike
Twelve Argentinian political prisoners began their
116th day on a hunger strike Dec. 28 demanding
their immediate freedom. The 12 were part of a unit that
attacked a military base in La Tablada, near Buenos Aires, in
1989.
The hunger strike has broad support among popular
organizations in Argentina, including the renowned Mothers of
the Plaza de Mayo. The Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights had petitioned Argentinian President Fernando de le
Rua to review the sentences, claiming that there were forced
disappearances, torture and summary executions in the
investigation leading to the sentencing.
The 1989 attack was staged by the Homeland for All
Movement to prevent a coup. In addition to the 13 prisoners,
32 of the guerrillas were killed outright during the attack
on La Tablada.
On Dec. 29, de la Rua announced that he would reduce the
sentences for ten of the twelve. Enrique Gorriar en Merlo and
Ana Sivori, charged as the leaders of the Movement, were not
included in the sentence reduction.
Gorriar achieved fame for assassinating the brutal
Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1980.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS
:: SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page