CANADIAN LABOUR-NEWFOUNDLAND:

FORMER WORKERS OCCUPY ABITIBI PLANT IN GRAND FALLS:

People who used to work at the AbitibiBowater plant in Grand Falls-Windsor in Newfoundland have reacted to government actions in not hiring former workers since they took control of the plant on its closing. No doubt the complaints of the workers involved are justified, but it shows perhaps "desperation" in that all they demand is that they be hired as security guards for the shuttered plant. It's possible that there is no other alternative, especially in an out-of-the-way place in Newfoundland. Still, in other places it might be considered that such exemplary actions as workplace occupations could have goals that were more expansive. Here's the story from the CBC. Good luck to the people involved. perhaps this is a cautionary tale as to why nobody should depend too much on government, as the Newfoundland government made the necessary "progressive noise" in taking over the plant while caring not a whit for the workers involved.

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Former Abitibi workers occupy mill
Frustrated former workers took over a central Newfoundland newsprint mill in Thursday, in a bid to win jobs as security guards.

AbitibiBowater shut down its mill in Grand Falls-Windsor last year, ending a century of newsprint production in the community and putting hundreds out of work.

On Thursday, about a dozen men snuck through a giant wire fence and into the mill.

"These people behind me are workers who worked here all their lives and they don't see it as trespass," said Gary Healey, a Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union official, who spoke to CBC News through the wire fence on their behalf.

"They see it as successorship and jurisdiction, and [that they] have a right to work."

The former workers' complaint is with the Newfoundland and Labrador government, which took control of AbitibiBowater's assets when the mill closed.

The men are demanding that the government hire them for any work that involves the mill, including a handful of security positions. None of the people hired at the facility now is a former mill worker.

"This is about people who lost just about everything they ever had, and they're frustrated, and they just want to be able to go to work, if there is any work," Healey said.

The CEP said the protesters will not budge until the provincial government commits to helping them out.

RCMP spent the morning on the site, but left after the security staff at the mill assured police that the protest was peaceful.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2010/03/04/abitibi-occupation-504.html#ixzz0hMow23QV

CANADIAN LABOUR-MISSISSAUGA:

PLANT OCCUPATION WORKED:

Back on December 22 Molly reported on a factory occupation at the M&I Air Systems Plant in Mississauga Ontario. The dispute involved management attempting to dodge their obligations upon closing the facility. The workers responded by occupying the premises. I'm happy to report that this example of direct action worked, and the workers have been paid the money owed them. One more example of the anarchist contention that direct action is often the most effective tactic for defending your rights. Sometimes it's the only one. Here's the good news from the website of the Canadian Auto Workers.

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Workers Receive Owed Monies Following Plant Occupation:
January 5, 2010, 10:49 AM EST
Workers at M&I Air Systems received their pay cheques in the days following a plant occupation and demonstration by the workers and supporters, held on December 21.

The Mississauga, Ontario plant suddenly closed its doors on December 15, throwing 180 people out of work, 150 of which were members of CAW Local 252. The employer refused to pay outstanding monies owed to the workers following the closure, which prompted the workers to take immediate action.

"The action taken by these workers was absolutely necessary, as the employer refused to have any dialogue with the local union and/or the local plant committee," said CAW Local 252 President Abbot Harvey. "This situation underscores one more time, the importance of legislative protection for workers and their families."

The union is still working on securing vacation pay, as well as an additional week's pay.

"Without the show of solidarity and support, the workers here would have never seen the money that was owed to them," said Sukhvinder Johl, CAW national representative. "It's an important reminder that even when the situation looks bleak, our actions as a union do make a difference."

The workforce is primarily first generation Canadians with a range of seniority from a few years up to 20 years. The company has not filed for bankruptcy protection and there is still hope that it will re-open.

M&I Air Systems manufactures air handling and ventilation units.

CANADIAN LABOUR-MISSISSAUGA:

MISSISSAUGA WORKERS OCCUPY FACTORY:

Here, from the Star is the story of how some workers at a Mississaga air conditioning plant peacefully occupied their workplace the other day. Certainly there should be more of these actions to put pressure on management in these hard times.

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Angry workers occupy plant:
Workers in Mississauga feel `blindsided' after hasty shuttering of M&I
Tony Van Alphen Business Reporter
Angry employees at an idle air conditioning manufacturer in Mississauga occupied the company's plant for more than three hours Monday after they charged management "blindsided" them with an abrupt shutdown and no paycheques for extra work.

More than 100 workers mingled peacefully and retrieved belongings including tools at the M&I Air Systems plant in a pressure tactic to get some answers about their missing pay and the plant's future.

Bob Chernecki, a senior official for the Canadian Auto Workers, said management had not responded to union queries since last week, when the company halted operations and told employees to go home.

Chernecki said in an interview that the occupation led to a meeting where management indicated it would inform the union about its financial status, payment to workers and any possible chance of a reopening on Wednesday.

"These workers were blindsided by this corporation just before Christmas," he said.

"It's ridiculous. They received no warning and now face so much uncertainty."

M&I did not return calls for comment about the company's situation.

Chernecki said he expects the U.S.-based company to slip into receivership or fall under bankruptcy court protection during the next few days.

"It doesn't look good," he said.

M&I formed in 1981 and provides air-moving technology and systems for industrial and institutional buildings.

Chernecki said M&I did not provide regular biweekly paycheques on Dec.10, but managers promised they would submit them on the following Monday if employees worked during the same weekend to complete a major air-system project for a customer.

"They didn't get paid on the Monday and on the Tuesday the company called them in at 9 a.m. and told them there was no work and to go home," he added.

The union, which represents about 155 workers at the plant, is seeking wages including overtime for the employees during the past three weeks plus severance and holiday pay.
Furthermore, it wants the company to file employment insurance information with the federal government immediately.

The workers, including some staff with more than 20 years service, negotiated a new three-year contract during the fall that contained small wage increases for lower-paid staff and a $400 lump sum amount for higher-paid employees. The average wage is about $18 an hour.

The CAW and other unions have pushed for stronger legislation to protect workers who are victims of plant closures, including giving them higher standing than other creditors.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR-ARGENTINA:

ZANON WORKERS WIN IMPORTANT LEGAL VICTORY:

As the economic crisis continues more and more workers are discovering the power of factory occupations in bringing the bosses to heel. Unfortunately few of the many instances in which this tactic has been used have seen the workers involved take the further step of actually taking the factory over and running it as a producers' cooperative. Sometimes this is unrealistic, but it has been proved to be more realistic in most cases than depending upon politicians to solve the problem, either by nationalization or by propping up the enterprise. In the country of Argentina, which entered an economic crisis years before the rest of the world, this step of "taking over" has actually been done dozens of times and the new self managed enterprises are usually successful, showing that bosses, either private or government, are not needed.

The following article from the Upside Down World website tells of a recent victory by one of the most successful of these take-overs, the Zanon ceramics factory.

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Zanon workers win major legal battle:

The workers at Argentina's occupied ceramics factory, FASINPAT (Factory Without a Boss), won a major victory this week: the factory now definitively belongs to the people in legal terms. The provincial legislature voted in favor of expropriating the ceramics factory and handing it over to the workers cooperative to manage legally and indefinitely. Since 2001, the workers at Zanon have fought for legal recognition of worker control at Latin America's largest ceramics factory which has created jobs, spearheaded community projects, supported social movements world-wide and shown the world that workers don't need bosses.

"This is incredible, we are happy. The expropriation is an act of justice," said Alejandro Lopez the General Secretary of the Ceramists Union, overwhelmed by the emotion of the victory. "We don't forget the people who supported us in our hardest moments, or the 100,000 people who signed the petition supporting our bill."

Hundreds of workers from the FASINPAT factory waited anxiously until the late hours of the night for the legislature's decision. The expropriation law passed 26 votes in favor and 9 votes against the bill. Thousands of supporters from other workers' organizations, human rights groups and social movements, along with entire families and students, joined the workers as they waited outside the provincial legislature in the capital city of Neuquén. Enduring the Patagonian winter weather, activists played drums and shouted: "here they are the workers of Zanon, workers without a boss."

FASINPAT has operated under worker control since 2001 when Zanon's owners decided to close its doors and fire the workers without paying months of back pay or severance pay. Leading up to the massive layoffs and plant's closure, workers went on strike in 2000. The owner, Luis Zanon, with over 75 million dollars in debt to public and private creditors (including the World Bank for over 20 million dollars), fired en masse most of the workers and closed the factory in 2001-a bosses' lockout. In October 2001, workers declared the plant under worker control. The workers subsequently camped outside the factory for four months, pamphleteering and partially blocking a highway leading to the capital city of Neuquén. While the workers were camping outside the factory, a court ruled that the employees could sell off remaining stock. After the stock ran out, on March 2, 2002, the workers' assembly voted to start up production without a boss. Since the occupation, the workers renamed the factory FASINPAT (Factory without a Boss).

The workers set up a stage with a giant screen for the thousands of supporters to view the legislative vote. As the decision was read, workers embraced one another in tears in disbelief that after 8 years of struggle they finally won legal control of the factory. "This decision reflects an organized struggle that won the support all of society," said Veronica Hullipan from the Confederation of Mapuche. She said that the network of Mapuche indigenous communities in the Patagonia have supported the Zanon workers' struggle and said legal decision is a "political triumph of workers' organization."

Zanon workers reminded their supporters that the struggle of Zanon, was also the struggle of Carlos Fuentealba, a public school teacher from the province of Neuquén killed by a police officer during a peaceful protest in defense of public education. The Zanon workers have not only created jobs, but they have supported workers struggles locally, nationally and internationally. Workers from FASINPAT were present at the protest where Fuentealba was shot point blank in the head with a tear gas canister, in police repression ordered by the conservative ruling coalition of Neuquén MPN, which has ruled the Patagonian province since the 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

"This is an important chapter in the struggle of the Zanon workers, who have been fighting in the streets for more than 9 years. First they tried to evict us in order to auction off the factory, the workers' struggle and the community pressured the government to expropriate the factory," Raul Godoy, Zanon worker told the national news daily Página/12. Today, the plant exports ceramics to 25 countries.

Many legislative representatives wanted to demand that the workers at the self-managed factory "guarantee a pact for social peace." But for the workers, the pact for social peace is broken when businessmen fraudulently go bankrupt and throw hundreds of workers out into the street. "The capitalists are constantly declaring war with tariff increases, by privatizing public companies and with firings. Before this situation, the workers must defend themselves; and the workers at Zanon commit to defending ourselves, in the street, however we have to."

According to the legislation passed, the FASINPAT cooperative which employs 470 workers and exports ceramics to more than 25 countries, will remain under the control of the cooperative. The state would pay off 22 million pesos (around $7 million) to the creditors. One of the main creditors is the World Bank - which gave a loan of 20 million dollars to Luis Zanon for the construction of the plant, which he never paid back. The other major creditor is the Italian company SACMY that produces state of the art ceramics manufacturing machinery and is owed over $5 million. However, the workers have resisted the state pay-off, saying that courts have proven that the creditors participated in the fraudulent bankruptcy of the plant in 2001, because the credits went directly to the owner Luis Zanon and not investments into the factory. "If someone should pay, Luis Zanon should pay, who is being charged with tax evasion," said Omar Villablanca from FASINPAT.
Victory, then an eviction
While the victory of FASINPAT brings hope to many of the 200 occupied factories currently operated under worker self-management in Argentina, many are still facing legal attacks. Early yesterday morning, just hours after the Zanon victory, a police operative evicted the factory Textil Quilmes, a thread factory occupied in the new wave of factory occupations in 2009. The four workers on night guard were evicted violently. The Buenos Aires provincial government is currently debating an expropriation bill for Textil Quilmes and several other new occupations in the Buenos Aires province. The textile workers are resisting the eviction at the factory's doors, rallying support to re-enter the factory despite police presence. They also had temporary legal protection, following an expropriation bill that was approved unanimously by the lower house in the provincial legislature.

The workers occupied the plant on February 11, 2009. "We camped outside the plant to avoid the bosses' liquidation of the machinery. And the workers decided to take a direct action, occupy and form a cooperative," said Eduardo Santillán, a Quilmes textile worker. With the remaining cotton left in the plant, the workers immediately began to produce cotton thread. At the time of the firing, more than 80 worked at the plant. In a common practice for business owners who file bankruptcy despite an increased demand for their product, the owner Ruben Ballani of Febatex owed the workers months of unpaid salaries, unpaid vacation time and social security. The workers also reported that the owner would force his employees to work 12 hour shifts, a practice outlawed nearly 100 years ago.

Six months after the workers were fired and the union (Sindicato Textil - AOT) failed to intervene, the workers at Textil Quilmes started up production. They claim that the union, who turned their backs on the workers once they were fired, is now negotiating on behalf of the bosses.

The occupations in Argentina continue to rise as the global economic crisis hits the South American nation. The Arrufat chocolate factory, Disco de Oro empanada pastry manufacturer, Indugraf printing press, Febatex thread producer and Lidercar meat packing plant joined the ranks of the worker occupied factory movement from 2008 to 2009. Textil Quilmes has fought along with workers from other factories occupied since the onset of the global economic crisis to demand expropriation laws; none have a definitive legal future.

Many independent analysts expect the global recession to hit Argentina's real economy. Unemployment rates have gone up and industry growth has halted, while the financial sector remains unaffected because it already took a major blow in 2001. Those who benefited from Argentina's economic recovery of course are now those who are using this crisis as an excuse to downsize and lay-off workers with the promise of public bailout packages and government credits.

The phenomenon of worker occupations continues to grow as the world falls deeper into the current recession. Nearly 20 new factories in Argentina were occupied since 2008. This may be a sign that workers are confronting the current global financial crisis with lessons and tools from previous worker occupied factories post-2001 economic collapse and popular rebellion. Today, some 250 worker occupied enterprises are up and running, employing more than 13,000. Many of these sites have been producing under worker self-management since 2002, providing nearly a decade of lessons, experiments, strategies and mistakes to learn from.

Zanon and others from the occupied factory movement have proven that they are capable of doing what bosses aren't interested in doing: creating jobs and work with dignity. This may be why government representatives, industry leaders and factory owners have remained silent and often times reacted with hostility on this issue; they are afraid of these sites multiplying and the example they have set.

At Zanon, workers constantly use the slogan: "Zanon es del pueblo" or Zanon belongs to the people. The workers have adopted the objective of producing not only to provide jobs and salaries for more than 470 people, but also to create new jobs, make donations in the community and to support other social movements. For many at the recuperated enterprises, the occupation of their workplace meant much more than safe-guarding their jobs, it also became part of a struggle for a world without exploitation. While the Zanon victory is a step in the right direction, many of the occupations are facing eviction orders. FASINPAT can now operate legally and focus their attention to producing ceramics in a faltering economy. The Zanon collective has expressed their continued commitment to defending workers' rights and self-management, which means defending all worker occupations with slogan: "si nos tocan a uno, nos tocan a todos": "if they mess with one of us, they mess with all of us."
Marie Trigona

http://upsidedownworld.org

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR-KOREA:

ANALYSIS OF THE SSANGYONG MOTORS FACTORY OCCUPATION:

The factory occupation at the Ssangyong Motors factory has ended (this time for real), with the final eviction of the occupying workers. The repercussions have yet to be fully played out. Here is an analysis of the occupation from the pages of LibCom, and I have to say that I agree with the author. Factory occupations are becoming an essential tool for workers to win their rights when faced with intransigent management, but they are far more likely to be successful if their struggle is generalized, both in the local community, nationally and internationally. One cannot always shift the blame to pusillanimous "union leaders". In the end ordinary people have to understand the need for publicity and generalization when they are faced with such situations. Networks of solidarity simply have to be built through the initiative of ordinary workers. Relying on representatives is just as fatal in a workplace dispute as it is in politics. Here's the story.

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Ssangyong motors strike in South Korea ends in defeat and heavy repression:
Loren Goldner's analysis and overview of the defeated strike and occupation of the Ssangyong Motors plant against job cuts.
The Ssangyong Motor Company strike and plant occupation in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, ended after 77 days on Aug. 5. For the 976 workers who seized the small auto plant on May 22 and held it against repeated quasi-military assault, the settlement signed by Ssangyong court receivership manager Park Young-tae and local union president Han Sang-kyun represented a near-total defeat. Worse still, the surrender was followed by detention and interrogation of dozens of strikers by police, possibly to be followed by felony charges, as well by a massive ($45 million) lawsuit against the Korean Metal Workers’ Union and probable further lawsuits against individual strikers for damages incurred during the strike. The hard-right Korean government of Lee Myong Bak is signaling with these measures—its latest and most dramatic “take no prisoners” victory over popular protest in the past year and a half-- its intention to steamroller any potential future resistance to its unabashed rule on behalf of big capital.

The Ssangyong strike echoed in many ways the dynamic seen in the recent Visteon struggle in the UK and in battles over auto industry restructuring around the world. Involving, on the other hand, an outright factory seizure and occupation, and subsequent violent defense of the plant against the police, thugs and scabs, it was the first struggle of its kind in South Korea for years. Its defeat—one in a long series of defeats extending over years—does not bode well for future resistance.

Ssangyong Motor Company was taken over three years ago by China’s Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, which holds 51% ownership. At the time, the Pyeongtaek plant (located about 45 minutes from Seoul) had 8700 employees; by the time of the strike, it had only 7000. In February the company filed for bankruptcy, proposing a restructuring and offering the Pyeongtaek plant as collateral for further loans to re-emerge from bankruptcy. The court approved the bankruptcy plan, pending adequate layoffs to make the company profitable again.
The management strategy seems to have been a long-term whittling down of personnel combined with acquisition of technology for operations in China. Since the Shanghai Automotive takeover, there has been no new investment at Ssangyong Motors, and no new car model launched. (Korean prosecutors have raised questions over the legality of the technology transfer to China, since the technology in question was developed with Korean government subsidies, but to date no legal action has been taken.) In December 2008 there was also a brief job action protesting this technology transfer.

Following the decision of the bankruptcy court, workers at the plant responded in April with warning strikes against pending layoffs. This evolved on May 22 into a full strike, plant takeover and occupation by 1700 workers when the list of workers to be laid off was announced. The strike focused on three main demands: 1) no layoffs 2) no casualization and 3) no outsourcing. The company wanted to force 1700 workers into early retirement and has fired 300 casuals.
The Ssangyong workers are organized in the Korean Metal Workers Union (KMWU) and have worked an average of 15-20 years in the factory. A regular worker earns a base pay of approximately 30,000,000 won (currently ca. $25,000) per year; a casual earns about 15,000,000 for the same work. (In Korea, the base pay is only part of the salary, which includes benefits –for regular workers—as well as significant overtime paid at a higher rate, often 10 hours a week and accepted, or even desired, by most workers as a necessary income supplement.)

As of mid-June, about 1000 workers were continuing the occupation, with wives and families providing food. About 5000 workers not slated for layoff stayed at home, and about 1000 supervisory staff scabbed, mainly maintaining machines, though no cars were produced once the occupation began.

There was in the early weeks little mass police presence in Pyeongtaek. This was due at least in part to the ongoing political crisis in South Korea following the recent suicide of ex-president Noh Mu Hyeon and subsequent large-scale demonstrations expressing growing outrage against the current right-wing government of Lee Myong Bak. The Lee government, elected in December 2007 on a program of high economic growth and already somewhat discredited by repeated blatant measures in favor of the wealthy and by the world crisis, was initially taken aback by the depth of outrage revealed in demonstrations mobilizing up to one million people. After the unleashing of riot police following Noh’s funeral provoked further outrage and brought more people to the streets, the government was at first unwilling to risk further disenchantment by an early assault on the Pyeongtaek factory.

On June 16, a large anti-strike rally of more than 1500 people was held outside the factory gates. The rally was attended by the 1000 supervisory scabs, 200 hired thugs and 300 workers not on the layoff list and not supporting the strike. 400 riot police stood by, doing nothing, and finally declared the scab assembly illegal, apparently due to fear that the occupying workers and their supporters might attack it.

During the scab rally, about 700-800 workers from nearby factories, such as the Kia Motor company, had come to defend the Ssangyong plant, in part in response to a text message tree of the KMWU.

The occupying workers made plans for armed defense against any police attempt to recapture the plant, stocking iron pipes and Molotov cocktails. As a further fallback plan, they prepared to concentrate in the paint department, where the flammable materials (in their estimate) would dissuade the police from firing tear gas canisters and setting off a conflagration. (This calculation did prove correct, as we shall see, but it ultimately proved of no avail.)

I spoke to one activist participating in the occupation and critical of the role of the union. In his view, the KMWU remained in control of the strike. However, in contrast to role of the unions in the Visteon struggle in the UK and in the dismantling of the US auto industry, the KMWU supported the illegal actions of seizing the plant and preparing for its armed defense. On the other hand, in negotiations with the company, it concentrated on the demand for no layoffs and soft-pedaled the demands for job security for all and against out-sourcing.

The core occupation of the plant was powered by 50 or 60 rank-and-file groups of 10 workers each, who in turn elected a delegate (chojang) for coordinated action. According to the same critical activist, these chojang are the most combative and class-conscious workers.

Once again, the Ssangyong strike initially benefited from a favorable political climate, which put the Korean government on the back foot, but it is up against the deep crisis of the world auto industry and the world economic crisis generally. The nearby Kia Motor Company plant was itself in the middle of critical negotiations for crisis measures, and GM-Daewoo is being hit with the world reorganization of GM. The company strategy, as in the case of Visteon, has been at best slow attrition (already underway since 2006) or even an outright closing of the plant.

In late June, the government and company dropped their wait-and-see attitude and began to go on the offensive. On June 22, stiff lawsuits had already been filed against 190 strikers. A few days later, one fired and heavily-indebted worker committed suicide. The broader social and political climate continued to harden, with groups ranging from school teachers to monks attacking the government’s accelerating drift to the right, and the forces of order, led by the ruling Hanaradang (Grand National) Party, branded such critics as sympathizers of North Korea. Demonstrations of strike supporters took place periodically in Seoul and in Pyeongtaek, but rarely assembled more than a few thousand people.

On June 26th-27th a serious government and employer attack on the plant resumed , as hired thugs, scabs recruited from the workers not slated for firing, and riot police tried to enter the factory. They secured the main building after violent fighting in which many people were injured. The occupying workers retreated to the paint sector, which was part of the (above-mentioned) strategy. (In January, five people in Seoul died in another fire set off during a confrontation with police, sparking weeks of outrage.).

On the following day, the company issued a statement declaring that there had been enough violence, but in reality in recognition of the tenacious worker resistance, and police and thugs were withdrawn. The company urged the government to involve itself directly in negations.
Ever since the attack of the 26th-27th, aimed at isolating Ssangyong’s struggle and breaking the strike, solidarity actions outside the plant were attempting to build broader support. These included a street campaign, mainly from family organizations in the center of Seoul and in the Pyeongtaek area, and a 4-hour general strike by the KMWU during which metal workers from nearby plants rallied in front of Ssangyong factory gate.

Then, on July 1, all water was cut off, which in the hot and humid Korean summer ultimately forced workers to trap rain water as they could and make improvised toilets from barrels when all toilets backed up. All access to the plant was blocked and negotiations collapsed.

On July 4th , and July 11 the KCTU (Korean Confederation of Trade Unions) held nationwide labor rallies in support of the Ssangyong’s struggle. These actions were, however , poorly attended and the leadership of the KMWU hesitated in declaring an all-out strike in response to the attacks on the plant. Activists think the KMWU and KCTU leaderships were more preoccupied with upcoming union elections. (927 activists also held a one –day hunger strike in the center of Seoul on July 11.) (From my experience in Korea over the past four years, these are largely ritual actions which rarely influence the outcome of a struggle, except as barometers of weakness and isolation.)

Finally, on July 16, 3,000 KMWU members gathered to support the Ssangyong strike in front of the Pyeongtaek City Hall. When they tried to move to the factory after the rally, they were blocked by police and 82 workers were arrested on the spot. During one subsequent (and failed) attempt to reach the plant gate with food and water, company thugs went out of their way to break every bottle of water.

The gloves really came off on Monday July 20. Here is the military situation as described by a worker from nearby Kia Motor Company who came, with hundreds of others, to help defend the plant against an attack by 3000 police, thug and scabs:

"When we finished night shift work at 5:30 this morning, we went to Pyeongtaek to the front gate of the Ssangyong factory where the struggles were going on, just as they had on the previous day.

By 9:00 or 10:00 AM many buses loaded with riot police were arriving at the gate, as well as approximately 20 fire-fighting vehicles as well.

While 2,000 riot police were trying to get near the paint plant, the workers responded with slingshots and sometimes Molotov cocktails. A catapult using bolts and nuts had a range of 200-300 meters and was effective. Tires placed in an effort to defend the plant were burning, and the black smoke covered the sky over the factory.

The company had cut off water and gas supplies and enforced a blockade on all material for workers from outside, including medical supplies. The company seems to have as a first strategy wearing people down to get them to leave the paint plant spontaneously.

Later that day, a police helicopter was spreading tear gas against workers who were fighting on the housetops. "

On 21 July, the KCTU declared a general strike from July 22nd to the 24th , and scheduled a nationwide labor rally on Saturday July 25th. The KMWU announced partial strikes on the 22nd and 24th in support of the Pyeongtaek strike and of ongoing negotiations. These strikes, which the KCTU in particular is in the habit of calling with neither follow-through or serious support, remained scattered and ineffective.

The same Kia worker, fighting police at the plant gate, reported these events as follows on July 22:.
"Starting July 20th, with a court order, more than 3,000 riot police, including a ranger unit, had tried to seize the plant and ordered workers out of the factory. After the workers rejected this order, the police launched an attack against occupying workers for 7 consecutive days, and this attack also involved hired thugs and scabs from workers not laid off.

The police are conducting round-the-clock ideological propaganda, and a police helicopter is flying low to prevent workers from sleeping and to unnerve them.

They have cut off the supplies of water and and gas and are refusing factory entry to humanitarian medical help. (Electricity has been left on to prevent paint and other flammable materials in the paint plant from decomposing.)

From the 21st onward, the police have been dropping tear gas from helicopters onto workers struggling on the roof of the paint sector. That gas includes a toxic material that can melt sponge rubber.

Intermittently, when the riot police try to get into the paint plant, they use a special gun firing 50,000 volts and nails, while the scabs are using slingshots from the building opposite.

Naturally, we are fighting the police with iron pipes and Molotov cocktails on the street in front of the factory to defend the strike.

By the end of July, the approximately 700 workers left in the plant were eating a rice ball with salt instead of regular meals, and drinking boiled rain. Though many workers had been injured during the fight, they resolutely continued their struggle.

On July 20th, one union official’s wife committed suicide at her home. Even though her husband was not laid off, he participated in the struggle despite several threats from management. His wife was just 29 years old. Thus far five people have died or committed suicide in as a result of this struggle.

On July 25, the KCTU held a rally in front of the Pyeongteck railway station. After that rally, the workers and other participants, armed with iron pipes and stones from the sidewalk, fought against riot police, while attempting to march to the Ssangyong factory gate. A brutal attack by police forced us to retreat from the front of the factory. Struggles continued late into the night on the streets of Pyeongtaek.

We of the KMWU are scheduled to launch a 6 -hour general strike on July 29th but as you know, it is so difficult to mobilize all union members to participate in such a strike.

Management has been seeking the moral high ground, claiming they may be forced into bankruptcy.

Amid growing pressure from some civic organizations, and some congressman, management and the Ssangyong union were scheduled to meet on July 25th. But the management cancelled that meeting unilaterally, for the sole reason (they claimed) that the workers still throwing bolts and that they could not accept the union’s demand of no layoffs but with all dismissed workers rotating on unpaid temporary retirement.

The management rejected union’s concession, and said that they will only accept layoffs.
On July 27, the Ssangyong workers held a press conference and another rally in front of the paint plant, escaping for a while the suffocating atmosphere inside.

The demands of that rally were:
1) Withdrawal of the police

2) Direct negotiation with management and government

3) Release of the results of the investigation into illegal effluence resulting from the use of hybrid diesel engine technology. "

Finally I’ll finish this, referring to the last part of the press conference ;
“ ….We have been doing our best to solve this dispute with the principle of peaceful settlement with dialogue. Nevertheless, if this kind of brutal, deadly repression continues, we openly declare our resolute will to fight to the death..

Those of us in here will show our determination to die to the world not only as workers but also as human beings.

We will fight unflinchingly and regain our rights and return to our homes at last. "

In the daily fighting from July 20 to July 27, the police, thugs and scabs had recaptured the entire plant with the exception of the paint department. Large contingents of police massed in the building next door, a few yards from the paint department entrance.

After renewed negotiations broke down again over the weekend of Aug. 1-2, electricity to the paint department was finally cut off, forcing the occupying workers to use candlelight at night. The final battle began on Aug. 3 and continued through the 5th.

100 strikers had left the occupation throughout the night (many out of disgust at the ruthlessness of the state and company's violence). In the final negotiations, the local union president agreed to early retirement (i.e. layoff with severance pay) for 52% of the occupiers, with 48% furlough for one year without pay, after which they will be rehired, economic conditions permitting. The company will also pay a 550,000 won monthly subsidy for one year to some workers transferred to sales positions.

In the ensuing days, insult was piled on injury with detention and pending indictments of scores of workers, and a 500,000,000 won ($45,000,000 US) lawsuit by the company against the KMWU. As indicated, further individual lawsuits, possible under Korean labor law which have left striking workers destitute in the past, may follow. The company claims 316 billion won ($258.6 million) damages and about 14,600 vehicles in lost production due to the strike.

This calculated vengeance by the government and the company shows a clear escalation of a general offensive against all possible opposition. A year before, in summer 2008, the 12-month strike at the E-Land department stores went down to defeat. Of the 10,000 employees who had struck in summer 2007, many returned to their jobs, accepting the miserable offer they had initially rejected, Others had already moved on to other jobs. The E-Land employees had repeatedly sat in and occupied stores, and on several occasions fought off police and thugs attempting to escort strikebreakers into stores. Nevertheless, following the defeat, nothing like the reprisals coming down on the Ssangyong workers occurred.

The Lee Myong Bak government of the Hanaradang Party has important roots in the 1961-1979 dictatorship of Park Chung-hee, which were the glory years of Korea’s emergence as the first Asian tiger. Park’s daughter was only narrowly edged out by Lee to become the party’s presidential candidate in 2007. More broadly, a rose-tinted view of the Park dictatorship, focused on its economic dynamism and downplaying or ignoring its brutal repression, has become widespread in Korean society in recent years, fueled by the spotty growth since the early 1990’s and above all since the 1997-98 financial meltdown when Korea came under the control of the IMF. (One of the IMF’s main conditions for its $57 billion bailout was a major increase in the casualization of workers.) The Lee government not only repealed a tax on luxury real estate transactions imposed by the previous Noh government, but it refunded the tax money collected in those years. During the Ssangyong strike, it also pushed through a much-contested media law, which will allow a Rupert Murdoch-type consolidation of the media by a few large conglomerates, wiping out smaller and more critical outlets. Korea’s notorious National Security Law, passed in 1948 during the civil war preceding the Korean War during which hundreds of thousands of leftists were killed, remains in force and has been recently used to arrest socialist groups for the simple fact of being socialist, as well as book dealers selling ostensibly pro-North Korean books.

The Ssangyong defeat cannot be attributed merely to the lame role of the KMWU national organization, which from the beginning allowed the negotiations to be channeled in a narrow focus on “no layoffs”. (By contrast, the local union president, who ultimately signed the surrender document, stayed in the occupied plant right to the end, even though he was not on the layoff list.) Nor can the defeat be fully explained by the atmosphere of economic crisis. Both of these factors undoubtedly played a major role. But above and beyond their undeniable impact, it is the year-in, year-out rollback of the Korean working class, above all through casualization, which now affects more than 50% of the work force. 1 Thousands of workers from nearby plant did repeatedly aid the Ssangyong strike, but it was not enough. The defeat of the Ssangyong strikers, despite their heroism and tenacity, will only deepen the reigning demoralization until a strategy is developed that can mobilize sufficiently broad layers of support, not merely to fight these defensive battles but to go on the offensive.

1. Cf. my article “The Korean Working Class:From Mass Strike to Casualization and Retreat, 1987-2007” - http://libcom.org/history/korean-working-class-mass-strike-casualization-retreat-1987-2007

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR-ARGENTINA:

WORKERS' CONTROL WORKS:

While workers across the world struggle with the effects of the present economic crisis in one country people have shown the way years ago. Workplace occupations are becoming increasingly frequent as the only tactic capable of putting sufficient pressure on management. The step beyond, however, is rarely taken...to take over the workplaces and actually start working them themselves under workers' control. Following their local economic crisis in the early 90s many workers in Argentina did take this step. Today they are prospering. Here's the story from The Indypendent, the newspaper of the New York Indymedia.

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Worker-Run Businesses Flourish in Argentina:

By Jaisal Noor

Maria Alejendra, a factory worker in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, Argentina, spends her days cutting pieces of rawhide at the Huesitos de Wilde Cooperative. Along with the 33 other original workers at the dog treat factory, Alejandra now makes twice as much money — 2,000 pesos a month — as she did under her former boss. Alejandra, 41, who has worked at the factory for 14 years, is now able to listen to music and drink maté, a South American herbal tea, while she works.

The Huesitos de Wilde Cooperative is just one of more than 250 worker-recovered businesses in Argentina, which employ a total of 13,000 workers. Part of a broader effort to recover factories, which started after the country’s economic collapse in 2001, the workers at Huesitos de Wilde first occupied the factory and took over production in January 2007.
Though Argentina’s economy has improved since the crash, the current economic downturn has caused a recent increase in factory take overs, with a significant uptick since February.

Nearly 20 factories have been occupied since 2008, and 33 new cooperatives have been officially registered with the government in the past few months. While the government readily grants businesses cooperative status — there are currently some 10,000 cooperatives in Argentina — gaining this recognition is the first step for the few hundred recovered enterprises that wish to be worker-run. However, the government has yet to recognize the legal right of any of these recently recovered businesses to exist.

While cooperative enterprises do allow workers a greater role in company decisions, worker recovered businesses allow employees to reclaim lost jobs, as well as receive the same wages and equally participate in management decisions, as is the case with Huesitos de Wilde.

Workers who seek to recover a business from their owners are faced with numerous challenges. In addition to often lacking management experience, the struggle to find start-up money and maintain a profitable business can often sideline reclaimed enterprises.

The workers at Huesitos de Wilde were offered guidance by an array of groups, including the Argentine Workers Center, a trade-union federation.

“Once we were taught, we came back to take over the factory,” Alejandra said.
Reclaiming factories that have been abandoned by owners provides workers with a way to counter the self-interest of some employers, according to Marie Trigona, a journalist and filmmaker who has worked with Free Speech Radio News and Z Magazine.

Businessmen often exploit crises by declaring bankruptcy so they can set up shop elsewhere and hire cheaper labor or invest their money in more lucrative projects, Trigona said.

While Argentina has provided business owners with the option to run cooperatives since the late 19th century, the country’s road to an option such as worker-run enterprises has not been an easy one. Argentina’s history has been plagued by neoliberal policies, such as widespread privatization, deregulation and cutbacks in social services.

Prior to the military coup of 1976, Argentina was one of the wealthiest nations in Latin America. It was the envy of the developing world, with strong labor laws and an unemployment rate of 4.2 percent. But after seven years of brutal military dictatorship — which were marked by widespread torture and the “disappearance” of 30,000 political opponents — followed by a string of pro-free market governments, these progressive policies were eroded.

By the 1990s, Argentina was viewed by the West as a poster-child for embracing neoliberal policies championed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. But when the speculation- driven economic bubble of the 1990s burst in December 2001, the country’s banking system collapsed. Business owners declared bankruptcy, fired scores of workers and moved their money offshore, resulting in a capital flight of $18.7 billion in 2001.

Argentine civil society responded through popular revolt against the government and economic elite. Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets and toppled four governments in a matter of weeks. Factory takeovers were commonplace, and violent clashes with police led to dozens of civilian deaths over the next several years.

In 2002, the unemployment rate was 25 percent, with another 20 percent of workers underemployed and 60 percent of the country living in poverty. Workers began taking over factories in an attempt to reclaim their livelihoods.

Argentina’s economy began recovering from the collapse in 2003. From 2003 to 2008, for “most recovered factories, the priority was growing economically, finding capital, or raising capital through work. Most of them have done pretty well, while others have just survived,” said Esteban Magnani, who has worked extensively with the recovered-business movement in Argentina and is the author of The Silent Change: Recovered Businesses in Argentina.

By early 2007, more than 170 businesses were worker-run, though the vast majority were not recognized by the government as legal businesses.

Members of the Huesitos de Wilde Cooperative credit La Base, the Argentine-based counterpart of the U.S. micro-finance organization The Working World, as well as the broader community of groups that support worker-run cooperatives, with the factory’s continued success.

This support network proved to be invaluable when the workers returned to the factory to reclaim it and discovered that most of the plant’s machinery had been removed.

With help from the Employees and Supervisors Union and a $15,000 loan from La Base, the workers were able to buy back the equipment before it was sold at the auction block as well as purchase raw materials. But the process was far from easy. For many months, workers went without paychecks, and only 33 of the original 200 workers chose to remain in the cooperative. Of the workers that left, some have found work while many are still unemployed.

The Working World, founded by Brendan Martin in 2004, offers collateral-free loans with no enforcement mechanism for repayment. While the interest rates on the loans given to Huesitos de Wilde range from 10 to 18 percent, the repayment rate for all Working World loans is 98 percent.

Though the Huesitos de Wilde Cooperative has managed to keep its factory doors open, the workers still do not own the property. They could be evicted at anytime. While Huesitos de Wilde only received preliminary approval last February under the law of expropriations, they must continue producing so they can pay off the debt owed by the former owner, thus keeping them in a state of legal limbo until they receive final approval and can be granted ownership of the factory.

According to Magnani, while the state has indicated that expropriation laws, which would provide cooperatives with legal permission to use owner assets, might be enacted, the legal support provided by this legislation would be weak.

“The future of the recovered factories, both the new and the old, is still uncertain,” Magnani said. “Of the older ones, just a few have managed to get the property of assets.”

Despite the challenges facing the workers at Huesitos de Wilde, the state of worker-run cooperatives in the United States is still far behind Argentina.

Late last year, more than 250 fired workers at the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago held a successful six-day sit-in demanding vacation and severance pay.

While the factory remains open after recently being purchased by California-based Serious Materials, a company that manufactures green building supplies, only 15 of the workers have been able to return to work since May, as production has been slow. Serious Materials hopes that an infusion of federal stimulus funds for weatherization will increase demand for the company’s products and allow them to re-hire all 250 workers.

Though the workers did consider the possibility of taking over the factory themselves, Mark Meinster, a representative of United Electrical Workers, the union to which the Republic workers belong, told The Indypendent earlier this year that the lack of a recovered-factory movement in the United States made this an unlikely possibility.(Sounds like the old "You First Jack"- Molly)

“The fact that no real movement of worker-run enterprises exists in the U.S. makes this option much more difficult at this point,” Meinster said.

Despite the current global recession, the Huesitos de Wilde Cooperative is thriving, and has recently hired eight more employees. The workers remain optimistic, regardless of their lack of legal ownership of the factory.

“The truth is that you can work without a boss. We have learned that you can continue … and you can succeed,” Alejandra said.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR-HAITI:

FACTORY OCCUPATIONS IN HAITI:



The following item from the Anarkismo website was sent their way from the Miami Autonomy and Solidarity group (sorry no internet contact as of yet). It's about recent factory occupations (a wonderful idea that is becoming more common worldwide) and their planned solidarity march this August 19th. Much more information on the situation in Haiti is available (en français) from the Alterpress website noted at the end of this item. Also check out the poorly updated website of the Haitian union group Batay Ouvriye.
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Factory Occupations in Haiti & a March August 19th:
Over 10,000 workers including Batay Ouvriye members at the industrial parks (i.e. mass sweatshop district) of Port au Prince occupied their factories Tuesday in support of the demand for the enactment of the minimum wage legislation passed by Parliament, but stalled by the President.





August 6th 2009: Over 10,000 workers including Batay Ouvriye members at the industrial parks (i.e. mass sweatshop district) of Port au Prince occupied their factories Tuesday in support of the demand for the enactment of the minimum wage legislation passed by Parliament, but stalled by the President. The workers are demanding the full 200 gourdes minimum wage, while the President and capitalists are trying to negotiate a lower wage. The bosses fled the factories in a panic through the back door as workers took over. Workers then marched to Parliament where a meeting was being held on the objections to implementing the minimum wage law. Flags from occupying nations were torn down and burnt by the workers (Alterpresse 08/04/09).




The first event occurred on August 3rd, and then subsequently by other groups of workers. Batay Ouvriye, a combative workers' organization, has called for the full 200 gourde minimum wage to be implemented, and has mobilized to fight in communities and factories to see it through. Miami Autonomy and Solidarity supports the struggles of Haitian workers and students, and will be picketing the Haitian Consulate in Miami on August 19th in coordination with other Haitian solidarity groups. MAS asks progressives and revolutionaries to organize similar pickets and struggle alongside Haitian workers this August 19th. In the days following August 4th similar occupations and activities have been reported in the industrial parks of Port-au-Prince.
http://www.alterpresse.org/spip.php?article8600

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR-KOREA:

UPDATE ON THE SSANGYONG MOTORS FACTORY OCCUPATION:

Molly has blogged on the subject of this factory occupation in Korea several times before, even making the mistake once of assuming that because the police had made an all-out assault on the workers that the occupation was finished. happily I was wrong. This group of workers have greater intelligence and staying power than the average summit-hopping anarchist- by a factor of 100 at least.

Here's the latest (yesterday) update on the situation from the LibCom site.

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Ssangyong occupation update: day eleven, July 30, 2009:
Negotiations have occurred several times throughout the day. The major hurdle is layoffs: management says they're necessary; strikers won't budge and demand that no one be laid off, even if it requires less hours for everyone and work furloughs. For the government and management it is crucial to break the strike so that austerity can be imposed on other autoworkers, as well as in other sectors needing restructuring due to the crisis. The biggest creditor of Ssangyong is Hankook Bank, which is government owned.
***Update July 30, 2009***
The strikers are making I.W.W.-like demands that no one be laid off; they're willing to agree to a reduction in hours, including unpaid work furloughs, to protect the job security of all workers. Creditors are using the threat of bankruptcy and liquidation to pressure the strikers to end the occupation; the government is in collusion with management in wanting to crush the strike (and the union) and for production to continue with a smaller workforce.

Since government-owned Hankook Bank is the biggest creditor to Ssangyong Motors, it is important for them to have production resume with a weaker union and a leaner, more flexible workforce in order to find buyers for the remaining shares of the company. Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) of China presently has a 51% share, but their main interest was technology transfer as they had no interest in investing capital in Ssangyong to resume production. This is all complicated because Korean courts currently control Ssangyong under the terms of court receivership.

The resolution of this strike has direct bearing on future attempts at restructuring by management at Kia Motors, GM/Daewoo, and the industry giant Hyundai Motors. Some of the fiercest struggles in the class war of the past have occurred at the various industrial subsidiaries of the Hyundai group. Ruling class interests hope to crush the Ssangyong occupation to dissuade other workers from following suit.
From Korea Times:
Quote:
07-30-2009 18:10Breakthrough Expected in Ssangyong Negotiations
By Park Si-sooStaff Reporter
PYEONGTAEK, Gyeonggi Province ― Representatives of fired workers and the management of Ssangyong Motor met Thursday amid a warning from creditors that the troubled carmaker will be liquidated unless the factory is normalized by Aug.5.

Unlike in previous talks, hopes for a peaceful settlement are growing as the two sides are getting closer to narrowing their differences on key issues, officials from both sides said.

"We expect the two sides to reach a conclusion through the meeting," Choi Sang-jin, the spokesman for Ssangyong management, said at a makeshift press center set up in the factory's parking lot. Choi refused to elaborate on the agenda, but implied that progress had been made. "We don't know when an agreement will be made,"

The two sides said the negotiation would be the "last" to hammer out a conclusion.

"No matter what the conclusion will be, no further talks will take place afterward," said a leader of the laid-off workers. An accord might lead to the reinstatement of a portion of the dismissed workers.

In talks last Saturday, the sides were unable to reach a settlement, with the union demanding an immediate cancellation of the layoffs.

Following the breakdown of the talks, a representative of the creditors announced a plan to liquidate the company, thus forcing the two sides to engage in last-ditch talks to avoid liquidation.

In a phone interview with The Korea Times, Wednesday, Choi Byeong-hoon, spokesman for the creditors, said they have reached an accord that liquidating the firm was a better option than waiting until Sept. 15 a court-set deadline for the company's management to submit a self-rescue plan to avoid liquidation.

The occupation began when 36 percent of the workforce was dismissed. So far, the firm has sustained $243 million in losses.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR-KOREA:

SSANGYONG WORKERS CONTINUE STRUGGLE/PROPOSE TALKS:

As I mentioned before on this blog I was wrong in assuming that the police invasion had managed to dislodge the workers occupying the SSangyong Motor factory in Pyeongtaek, Korea. The workers involved retreated to the plant paint shop where they have continued to hold out despite repeated assaults on the part of the police. Here is the latest news from the Korea Times. The following comes to Molly via the online labour solidarity site Labour Start.

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Ssangyong Union Proposes Talks:
Management Demands Union Stop Call for Withdrawal of Layoffs

By Park Si-soo

Staff Reporter

Laid-off union members of Ssangyong Motor said Monday they are open to talks with management to end their occupation of a building in the company's factory in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province.

The remarks came two days after management refused to hold talks. Ssangyong executives are far from positive about the proposal, saying it was a union tactic to buy time and take the upper hand in negotiations.

Representatives of around 600 striking protesters occupying a paint shop for more than two months held a press conference on its rooftop using a loud speaker.

``From now on, we will engage in any talks with the government and management to end the deadlock as early as possible,'' union leader Han Sang-gyun said. ``If they refuse, they should be held liable for any problems to the company including its bankruptcy.''

Han urged police to end their bid to disperse protesters with negotiations underway.

The union wants the firm to rehire laid-off workers immediately, which management says cannot do.

Ssangyong management is refusing to return to the negotiations. ``We told the government that we will not have a meeting with them for a while,'' a Ssangyong executive said following the press conference. ``This is to buy time. We will not fall into the trap they set up.''

Labor Minister Lee Young-hee denounced the striking workers for their indifference to the firm's possibility of bankruptcy in the wake of the protest.

``It's sad to know that hundreds of workers had been laid off. But it was inevitable to revive the ailing company,'' Lee told reporters at his office in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province. ``They should keep in mind that their sacrifice will help normalize the company and, in the long run, they will get an opportunity to return to their workplace.''

Police confronted laid-off union workers inside the factory for the eighth consecutive day on Monday.

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Here is a further report, also via Labour Start, from the American Chronicle about what the Korean workers are facing in their struggle.

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Korean Workers Defy Police and Continue 2-Month Sit-in at Auto Plant:
Harry Kelber
July 26, 2009
Hundreds of discharged workers from South Korea´s Ssangyong Motors have continued to clash with police as they resist efforts to end a two-month siege at the company´s main factory. Up to 600 workers have been occupying the paint shop part of the factory in protest against massive job cuts that are part of a company restructuring plan.

Around 3,000 riot police have been deployed to the factory and on July 22, police helicopters dumped tear gas into the plant in an effort to force the discharged workers to leave. A company spokesman said the protesters are believed to have stocked up on enough food and other necessities to hold out for a considerable time. A police officer said " We´re fully ready to move in, but haven´t set the timing, because a lot of flammable material, such as paint and thinner, is scattered in the paint shop. For now, it is difficult to move in."

Lee Chang-kun, a spokesman for the union, said "If police decide to move in, then it would mean they don´t care, even if dozens die." The protest began on May 21 and has paralyzed production at the plant. Ssangyong's labor union rejected a compromise offer from the management in late June. Since then, there has been no contact between the company and the strikers.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR-KOREA:

SSANGYONG MOTORS STRUGGLES ON:

There is one advantage to being an eternal pessimist. When you are wrong you pleasantly surprised. Late last month I reported that the plant occupation at Ssangyong Motors in Korea had been violently evicted by the police in attack on the workers there. It turns out that I was wrong. What happened is that the workers involved had a "Plan B", and they retreated to the "painting section" of the plant in the expectation that the invaders wouldn't fire their weapons into an area containing volatile chemicals. To their credit the superiors of the invading force recognized the "problem" and, rather than risk some very bad publicity by ordering their tools to fire while beating a hasty retreat from the area themselves ordered a withdrawal. I wonder how you say "boom" in Korean. The workers still hold the plant. A liitle bit chancy, depending upon the rationality of the opponent for sure, but, in this case it worked. I hope the comrades in Korea had lots of tobacco and alcohol to relax afterwards. I'd certainly need it once the adrenalin buzz dissipated. Personally I could see myself doing the same in "the heat of battle", but I'd sure need to unwind once I wasn't convinced that the enemy wasn't going to blow themselves up along with me. More on what happened afterwards later on this blog. But for now, the Korean comrades still need your support. Here's an item from the Australia Asia Worker Links site asking you to send messages of solidarity to the workers involved.

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Urgent appeal for solidarity with Ssangyong workers in Korea:
Urgent Appeal for Solidarity
1700 Workers of Ssangyong in Korea have been in strike to defend their Jobs beginning on the 28th of May. The plant is occupied by workers and their families. On 27th of June, 3000 armed strikebreakers, supported by water guns and helicopters, tried to break the resistance.

After more than 24 hours, the company withdrew their strikebreakers.

Workers in Korea fight a very important struggle against the burden of the capitalist crisis. They need our solidarity from all over the world.

Solidarity messages can be sent to:
Korean Metal Workers’ Union – KMWU
5th Floor, Daeyoung Bld.

139 Youngdeungpo-2-ga

Youngdeungpo-ku

Seoul 150-982

Korea
Tel: (+82) 2 2670 9515
Fax: (+82) 2 714-0662
E-mail inter@metal.nodong.org
More information:
International Metalworkers Federation
Korean Metal Workers Union
Korean Council of Trade Unions
Action:
Click here to send your solidarity message