In a press conference in front of Yoon’s presidential office in Seoul’s Yongsan District on Monday, the KCTU presented a “declaration of a KCTU general strike to demand the resignation of Yoon Suk-yeol administration, which has been destructive to labor, livelihoods, the masses, and peace.”

In remarks on June 28, Yang stressed the point that the general strike was a battle specifically against the administration.

“While strikes have traditionally been a way for workers to make their own gains by reducing gains for employees [in labor-management relations], this strike is directed at the Yoon Suk-yeol administration,” he said at the time.

This situation was behind the core agenda of the strike, which includes calls for livelihood protections, amendments of legislation, and demands for changes in the administration’s stance such as stopping suppressions of unions, amending Articles 2 and 3 of the Trade Union Act, raising the minimum wage, and reversing privatization and hikes in public utility charges.

The KCTU general strike is not expected to have an enormous impact on industrial operations, as the format involves dividing up dates during the two-week period for individual industry unions to go on strike.

Six major business groups, including the Korea Enterprises Federation, issued a joint statement Monday insisting that the “objectives of the strike are unfeasible political demands” and the KCTU general strike itself was an “illegal political strike that forfeits any legitimacy.”

Minister of Employment and Labor Lee Jung-sik declared that the KCTU general strike “cannot be called a legitimate strike.”

“We have responded sternly to illegal actions based on law and principles in the past, and this strike will not be an exception,” he stressed.

The Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union (KHMU), which is affiliated with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) and comprised of various health care workers such as nurses, nurse’s aides, radiology technicians, and admin workers, began its general strike on Thursday.

The KHMU last went on general strike 19 years ago, when it fought to prevent the privatization of health care and to urge the protection of the five-day workweek in 2004.

The KHMU is demanding the expansion of the nursing and caregiving integrated service system, which aims to lower the cost of caregiving for patients, as well as the institutionalization of a nurse-to-patient ratio of 1:5 for patient safety.

Other core demands include increasing the number of doctors in the workforce to put an end to illegal practices in the medical field, such as nurses performing procedures or providing prescriptions instead of doctors; strengthening public health care, which is responsible for essential medical services that directly tie into the lives of the public; and government support for the normalization of hospitals dedicated to COVID-19 treatment.

Workers performing essential services in emergency rooms, operating rooms, intensive care units, and delivery rooms continue to perform their work duties even during strikes according to the law.

During a closed-door meeting between the government and the ruling party at the National Assembly, Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong said, “It is not fair for a labor union to force the government to announce policy in time for a KCTU strike,” adding, “It would be proper for [the KHMU] to not join in on a KCTU strike but to propose opinions in order to come up with reasonable policies.”