Korean laborers rally to condemn Yoon’s union-bashing, announce general strike for July

On Monday, the 133rd annual International Workers’ Day, Korean labor unions came together to criticize the “union bashing” by President Yoon Suk-yeol and his administration and announce plans for a general strike in July.

Workers gathered in Seoul, with organizers estimating 80,000 people at the event, while police estimated about 38,000.

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The first large-scale May Day rally since the inauguration of the Yoon administration was marked by huge backlash against the prevailing pressure on unions.

“The Yoon administration has created a prosecutor’s republic and is practicing a politics of fear that is pushing democracy backwards,” said Yang Kyung-soo, chair of the KCTU, in a speech at the rally. “Raids have become routine, and there is a new story each day about construction workers being arrested.”

“Their aim is to dissolve democratic unions by attacking existing unions such as the KCTU by labeling them illegal, corrupt, violent, and accusing them of espionage,” he went on to say.

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Holding signs that read “Out with Yoon Suk-yeol,” and “General strike now,” participants filled six lanes of traffic from in front of Donghwa Duty Free, where the podium was set up, to Seoul City Hall Station.

News of the attempted self-immolation by an executive member of the KCTU who had been under investigation on charges of intimidation for coercion added to the rage that radiated from the crowd.

“The Yoon administration’s brutal crackdown on construction unions has led many workers to their deaths,” Yang said, adding, “Let us crush this regime that’s killing all us workers.”

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The KCTU said 130,000 people attended International Workers’ Day rallies in 14 metropolitan cities across the country, including Seoul.

Korean unionist self-immolates outside court on May Day

The Korean Construction Workers’ Union reported on Monday that the leader of a local union branch had self-immolated outside of a local court in Gangneung, Gangwon Province, that morning.

According to the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions-associated union, the unionist was rushed to the Gangneung Asan Hospital immediately after setting himself on fire outside of the Gangneung branch of the Chuncheon District Court, but had been in a state of cardiac arrest and had suffered full-body burns.

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Writing that he planned to self-immolate that day, Yang said he had chosen to do so because he had “carried out union work justly and without wrongdoing,” but that prosecutors were charging him with “not a violation of the Assembly and Demonstration Act, but ‘interference and intimidation.’”

“My pride cannot abide this,” Yang wrote about the charges against him.

“I should have fought doggedly, struggled tenaciously to win. Perhaps I’m taking the easy way out,” the unionist wrote.

“I was glad to have been in this together with you,” Yang wrote. “I will stand at the side of my comrades eternally.”

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