Welcome to BASE21

Dear Working Brothers and Sisters All Around the World,

We send our deepest solidarity to your struggles for workers' rights.

At the moment, the Korean government is attempting to privatise and sell off to foreign monopoly capital, most of Korea's core national industries including the railway, gas and electricity. The number of workers concerned amounts to 30,000, who are on the verge of being laid-off.

130,000 public sector workers -100,000 from KPSU, 25,000 railway workers and 3,000 gas workers- have decided to go on a general strike as of 9:00am 25th February 2002, to resist against the government. The Korean government and workers are in tense conflict, because the government is not showing willingness to solve the present situation through dialogue. Instead, on 22nd it held a meeting of security-related ministers, promising austere measures in case of an illegal strike. The government is making attempts to arrest union leaders and rid of the unions. When we go on strike, it is for certain that hundreds of union leaders will be arrested and our unions will be sued for compensations.

We, the Korean workers, thus ask in urgency for the solidarity and support of workers all around the world.

We ask for your support through the following actions:

- Please organise rallies and protest letters to the Korean Embassy, in defiance of the suppression by the Korean government.

- Please send letters and telephone calls to the Korean government protesting the suppression of the workers.

- Please visit or send messages of support and encouragement to the Korean workers, who are fighting in spite of hardline oppression and neo-liberal globalisation.

In Solidarity,

Young-kyu Yang,

President,

Korean Federation of Transportation, Public & Social Services Workers Unions(KPSU)

PS)Please send your solidarity messages to these email addresses
- kpsu@jinbo.net
- base21@jinbo.net
- picis@jinbo.net