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President-elect Lee Myung-bak has unilaterally scrapped a plan to meet with representatives of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, one of the nation’s two major umbrella labor organizations. The president-elect’s spokesman says the reason for the cancellation is tied to a disagreement between the president-elect’s transition team and the KCTU about a police investigation of the KCTU leader, saying that it is a matter of “law and order.” The move is seen by many as being typical of Lee’s desire to conduct labor-politics relations based on power, rather than gathering opinions from the labor community or trying to form peaceful labor-management relations. Meanwhile, labor groups and civic organizations are facing growing anxiety over possible conflicts and distrust between the labor community and the incoming administration.

On January 28, Joo Ho-young, Lee’s spokesman, said, “A planned meting with the KCTU was postponed indefinitely because of a disagreement about a police investigation of the KCTU leader.” Ahead of the meeting, Lee’s transition team had requested that Lee Seok-haeng, the leader of the KCTU, be called in for questioning by police about demonstrations that took place last year in protest against free trade negotiations with the United States. “More consultations with the KCTU are needed so that law and order can be maintained in labor-management relations,” Joo added.

A transition team official said, “If Lee, the KCTU leader, agrees to be questioned by the police, the meeting will be arranged again.”

The meeting was scheduled to take place on January 29 at the KCTU’s main office. At the meeting, the KCTU was planning to raise a number of issues, including discrimination against non-regular workers, social polarization and opposition to the incoming administration’s plans to privatize public companies.

In a hastily arranged press conference on January 28, the KCTU leader strongly criticized the president-elect for having canceled the meeting, saying, “The meeting was scrapped after discussions about protocol were completed. This indicates that the incoming administration is aiming to return to the authoritarian rule of the past in which workers’ rights were disregarded. It is unfortunate that the KCTU isn’t treated with as much importance as the alumni association of Korea University,” the leader said. The President-elect is a graduate of Korea University and has frequently participated in alumni association meetings. “We will take hostile countermeasures against this attempt to dismiss the KCTU,” the KCTU leader said.

According to a document outlining the planned meeting between the president-elect and the KCTU, written by the transition team and disclosed by the labor organization, discussion on a set of procedures for how the meeting was to be conducted was deadlocked on January 25, when the transition team demanded that the KCTU leader respond to a police summons.

Woo Moon-sook, a spokesperson for KCTU, said, “Simply summoning the KCTU leader to the police station for questioning is just an excuse, when the president-elect himself has not responded to a summons by special prosecutors. It’s an unacceptable attitude,” Woo said. The president-elect has been under investigation by specially-appointed independent counsel over allegations that he was involved in stock price manipulation in collaboration with his former business partner, as well as a number of other charges.

Meanwhile, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, a more conservative umbrella labor organization, expressed concern over the cancellation, calling it “unfortunate.” A statement released by the FKTU said: “Given the new administration’s initiatives to revitalize the economy, it is inappropriate for the incoming administration to refuse to hold discussions with the labor community.”

Park Won-seok, an official from the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, an advocacy group, said, “While President-elect Lee has criticized the peer-to-peer politics of the participatory government (of President Roh Moo-hyun), this cancellation clarifies his will to run the nation solely for the benefit of his supporters.”

In a statement, the Korea Progressive Alliance said: “This is an unfair act because (President-elect Lee) has raised questions about the activities of the KCTU leader, who supported irregular workers at E-Land, while pledging to keep in touch with chaebol owners who have committed crimes.” The E-land dispute occurred last summer before a new labor law was to take effect. The impending implementation of the law, which the government said had been designed to protect temporary workers and provide them with permanent employment after a period of two years, spurred companies to instead lay off thousands of workers in advance of the implementation of the new law on July 1. KCTU was involved in supporting the striking workers, most whom were employed as cashiers.

Kim Dong-won, a professor of business at Korea University, said, “The cancellation may represent the president-elect’s desire to press or dismiss the hard-line KCTU, while embracing the (more moderate) FKTU, which has formed a policy alliance with the transition team. If he sticks with this attitude, harsh confrontations with the labor community will be inevitable.”

Lee Ji-ahn, a deputy spokesperson for the Democratic Labor Party, said, “There are no laborers in the President-elect’s ‘business-friendly’ policies. The administrator of national policy is inciting a labor-management dispute, rather than resolving it.”


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