Korail shifting around workers in response to strike

Posted on : 2014-03-20 15:05 KST Modified on : 2014-03-20 15:05 KST
Strike late last year against privatization is leading to thinly-veiled punitive actions of transferring workers

By Bang Jun-ho, staff reporter

“Yesterday when I was going out for lunch with my coworkers, I got a text message from a colleague,” the railroad worker said. “The message said he was getting transferred and had to come in for a meeting. In a moment, everyone became quiet. We felt bad for him, and anxious for ourselves.”

Lee Geun-jo, 37, who has been working at Korail’s train car facility in Guro since 2005, was standing in the waiting room at Youngdeungpo Station, Seoul at 1 pm on Mar. 19, holding up a sign. “I decided to do a one-person protest with the hope of taking care of my coworkers,” Lee said. Around 20 of 180 coworkers at the Guro facility who took part in the railroad strike with Lee at the end of 2013 may have to move somewhere new according to Korail’s plans to relocate workers.

A man standing next to Geun-jo was holding a sign that read, “The railroad strike was just, stop suppressing the union.”

“Faced with these random transfer notices, employees are losing their minds,” said Lee Seon-hee, 42, who joined the company at the same time as Lee Geun-jo. “It makes me so nervous to think that the same thing could happen to me, too.”

[%%IMAGE2%%]

Except for those working inside subway stations, Korail employees stay at the same workplace until their retirement, barring any unusual circumstances. But after the strike, the company suddenly announced plans to implement work rotations, which would involve transferring 5-10% of the employees at each workplace to a different one.

“The planned transfers are basically punitive compulsory relocations,” said Park Tae-man, vice chair of the Korean Railway Workers’ Union, part of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU). “Most of the work here requires expertise and teamwork. Arbitrarily moving employees around like this could even endanger the safety of the railroad.”

That is not the only issue. On Feb. 27 - after the union called off the strike - Korail took sweeping disciplinary action against the workers who had participated, laying off 130 of them and suspending 284 from their work. It also asked courts to seize property from the union and force it to pay 28.7 billion won (US$26.81 million) in damages.

All day on Wednesday, union members, citizens, and public figures took part in one-person protests at 600 train stations and 400 downtown areas around South Korea, holding signs expressing their opposition to Korail’s punitive disciplinary action and the privatization of the railroads.

“The strike was resolved through mediation by major figures in the ruling and opposition parties. It’s not right for the strikers to be punished like this,” shouted Hong Hee-deok, former lawmaker for the Progressive Justice Party, who was holding a placard at Hoeryong Station in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province. “Politicians should also make a serious effort to discuss privatization of the railroads, as they promised.”

“I came out today because I can’t stand watching them start privatizing the public sector starting with the railroads, even though this is something that is our natural right to enjoy,” said Lee Ji-wan, who was holding a sign in front of Ewha Womans University in Seoul. Lee is a 20-year-old history student at the university. “The workers and their families are still struggling amid difficult conditions. It is a shame that the issue of privatization of the railroads is being forgotten.”

The railroad union has resolved to follow up on the one-person protests by setting up tents for sit-ins at each union chapter to provoke a society-wide discussion of privatization of the railroads.

In regard to Korail’s plans for transferring workers - which present a direct threat to active union members - the union rejected the company’s request for workers to come in for meetings about the transfers. It is planning to assemble railroad engineers from across the country to participate in a protest demonstration on Mar. 28.

 

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

button that move to original korean article (클릭시 원문으로 이동하는 버튼)

Most viewed articles