Imprisoned KCTU President Garners International Attention
Two representatives from the International Labour Organization (ILO) visited Korea on October 16th to examine labor-management relations and the general state of labor in Korea. At a meeting between the ILO delegates and representatives of the South Korean government, the ILO also urged the Kim Dae-Jung administration to move quickly to legalize a number of trade unions in a variety of industries.
Source : BASE21
By Lee Min-a/BASE21 Correspondent (joli803@freechal.com)
(Seoul, Korea) - Two representatives from the International Labour Organization (ILO) visited Korea on October 16th to examine labor-management relations and the general state of labor in Korea. At a meeting between the ILO delegates and representatives of the South Korean government, the ILO also urged the Kim Dae-Jung administration to move quickly to legalize a number of trade unions in a variety of industries.
The ILO also met the nation's two umbrella labor groups, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU).
This encounter called public attention to the broad coalition currently fighting for the release of KCTU president Dan Byung-ho.
The "Free Dan Committee" is an alliance of Catholic priests, Protestant ministers and Buddhists monks, as well as professors, lawyers and other activists involved in a wide variety of social movements. It claims that the government has broken its promise to free President Dan after having served two months and four days in prison. In August, President Dan turned himself in to the police in order to halt attacks on workers and the trade union movement. As his sentence came to an end, however, government authorities extended his imprisonment without justification, arousing suspicion that the Kim Dae-Jung administration wants to rid Korea of trade unions instead of engaging workers in a dialogue to resolve labor disputes, said one KCTU official.
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