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Police stormed into the Hotel Lotte in downtown Seoul arresting 1,088 hotel employees on strike occupying two floors of the luxury hotel. Labor unions and civic groups are denouncing this move by police promising to make this the summer for strikes and protesting.

Carrying warrants of arrest for the union leaders, at 4:20 am on Thursday, the 3,000-strong police force quietly made their way to the banquet rooms on the 2nd floor. Surprising the picketers, they started breaking up the sit-in and beginning to make arrests. Encountering such large numbers of police, people starting fleeing up to the 37th floor occupied by another group of picketers barricading stairwells with chairs and halting elevators.

At 7:15 am, a special police unit accessed the roof of the hotel through a bridge connecting the hotel with an adjacent building and descended to the 37th floor. The union strikers were quickly rounded up and transported to police headquarters.

In addition to damaged rooms and broken glass, 30 picketers as well as 5 police officers required medical attention not to mention the estimated 400 guests staying at the hotel, many of whom had not been told of what was going on and scared to leave their rooms while police and strikers clashed for more than 3 hours.

The labor union representing hotel employees, who have been on strike since the 8th of June, were demanding that part-time employees be given full-time benefits, an extension of required retirement age, and employees being given a share of the service fees charged by the hotel in lieu of tipping.

In reponse to police actions, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) in a press conference denounced it as a feeble attempt by police to make up for how "ineffective" they looked during the recent strikes held by the nation's doctors by resorting to strong-arm tactics against a "powerless labor group."They demanded the resignation of Lee Mu-young, president of the National Police Agency as well as the indictment of the Lotte Hotel itself.

The Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) also weighed by saying that "intervention by force such as was shown at the Lotte Hotel will further aggravate relations between employers and employees. If government continues to restrain legtimate actions of labor unions by using police force, we'll put on a large-scale anti-government campaign."

A civic group focusing on political reform also criticized government actions resorting to police muscle, actions made that much more shocking when compared to the mild government response to doctors striking, crippling the entire nation's health care system. "Government here using its authority siding with the power-wielding Hotel deserves criticism," said a spokesperson for the group.

Releasing the majority of the picketers, police kept 10 union leaders including its head organizer, Jung Ju-yok, in custody.