S. Korean president likens striking truckers to N. Korean nuclear threat, vows to “lay down law”

Posted on : 2022-12-06 16:45 KST Modified on : 2022-12-06 16:58 KST
Since issuing a work order on Nov. 29 to truckers who refused to transport cement, Yoon has been turning up the pressure on the strikers and calling their industrial action illegal
President Yoon Suk-yeol speaks at an event commemorating Korea’s Day of Trade at Coex in Seoul on Dec. 5. (presidential office pool photo)
President Yoon Suk-yeol speaks at an event commemorating Korea’s Day of Trade at Coex in Seoul on Dec. 5. (presidential office pool photo)

The Hankyoreh has confirmed that President Yoon Suk-yeol issued a torrent of hard-line comments directed at striking truckers during closed-door meetings with advisors last week, equating them with the North Korean nuclear threat and calling on the government to “lay down the law.”

The comments, coming during a strike led by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU)-affiliated Cargo Truckers Solidarity Division (TruckSol), are drawing fire for revealing Yoon’s hostility toward labor unions by comparing a strike to a threat to national security, and for fanning tension.

A high-ranking presidential official told the Hankyoreh on Monday that the gist of Yoon’s comments was that if South Korea “had responded to the North Korean nuclear issue according to principle, things wouldn’t have gotten to the point where they are now,” so “the more difficult the problem, the more important it is to lay down the law.”

Another high-ranking source said Yoon was saying that “the KCTU’s behavior was the same as North Korea’s strategy of threats,” and that he was making clear that “there will be no compromise like in the past.”

Attending a national prayer breakfast at a hotel in Gangnam on Sunday, Yoon said he would do his all to “create a country where the spirit of freedom and solidarity lives and where there are proper laws and rules.”

This suggests Yoon reaffirmed his exacting stance regarding the strike by truckers even during a religious event.

Since issuing a work order on Nov. 29 to truckers who refused to transport cement, Yoon has been turning up the pressure on the strikers, declaring that he would “hold [the striking truckers] legally responsible to the very end for their illegal, criminal walkout” (said during an internal meeting on Friday), and that the strike represented “a serious threat to legalism” (said during a ministerial meeting on Sunday).

Yoon seems to be laying the groundwork for labeling the truckers’ strike “illegal” and in promoting distorted messages.

And with the KCTU set to launch a general strike on Tuesday, tension between labor and the government will likely hit a fever pitch.

On the other hand, the government is unlikely to issue additional return-to-work orders during a regular Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Han Duck-soo on Tuesday.

A presidential official said that “all the preparations are in place to issue work-start orders,” but “we don’t feel we’re at the point where we’ll immediately issue them.”

The government reportedly believes that the deployment of military tanker trucks has eased the emergency in the petroleum sector. It is also watching the supply and demand capacity in the steel sector.

The administration's rigid stance on the truckers strike seems to reflect its experience during the first strike by truckers it experienced after taking office, an eight-day walkout launched on June 7.

TruckSol and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport brought that strike to a conclusion by agreeing to keep the so-called “safe trucking freight rates system” for truckers in the container and cement industries, and to discuss expanding it to include truckers in other industries.

However, businesses accused the government of essentially surrendering.

Yoon seems to have established a strategy of uniting his supporters based on “hatred of the KCTU and labor unions.”

Lee Byoung-Hoon, professor of sociology at Chung-Ang University, said Yoon's continued use of hostile language directed at TruckSol, despite the president's duty to run the country by bringing people together, “might be because he thinks it will help his approval numbers if he latches on to opinion polls ill-disposed to labor strikes.”

He added, “By speaking for only one side of a socially divisive issue, and through comments seemingly burning with hostility, the president is fanning social tension.”

By Kim Mi-na, staff reporter; Park Tae-woo, staff reporter; Jeon Jong-hwi, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

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