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UNI affiliate, the Korean Financial Industry Union (KFIU) has postponed today's planned strike action after what KFIU President Kim Moon-Ho called "positive outcomes...achieved through KFIU's rally and candlelight vigil held last week."

The government's "megabank" policy has been changed to meet three of the union's key demands, relating to the privatisation of the Woori Bank and the Korea Development Bank and the guarantee of employment for the Agricultural Cooperatives Union.

KFIU will continue to fight for other important demands including university student tuition fees and youth employment.

Members of the KFIU had voted to oppose the government’s proposal to privatise state-run banks. About 80,000 workers of the country’s 35 financial institutions were poised to take strike today July 30, joining auto workers who are holding partial strikes this week for wage increases and better working conditions. It would have marked the first strike by the banking sector in 12 years.

Phillp Jennings, the General Secretary of UNI Global Union sent a message of support which was shared with the workers at the rally.

Watch his video messaged here:

President Kim Moon-Ho of the KFIU (Korea Finance Industry Union) is leading a very important initiative in the Korean union movement - exploring new solutions to the economic crisis by proposing alternatives to the prevailing neoliberal model. The goals are to save jobs through the reduction of working hours, restoring public trust in financial institutions by going back to their basic economic functions and extend social responsibility by providing free-interest rate for university students.



The Korean union movement is in the middle of a chaotic political, economic and social crisis as Korea is facing a storm of economic panic and global recession. Hyundai Motor workers union went on a 4 hour partial strike on July 13, calling for the reduction of working hours and for the suspension of night time shifts.



In May UNI-KLC affiliates held a forum on Working Hour Reduction for the well-being of workers who suffer from long working hours and stress, especially in the sectors of banking, insurance, call centres, health care, distribution industry as well as postal services. Working Hour Reduction is key to favour work-sharing, occupational health, family friendly policies and gender equality.



KFIU and Korea Bankers Association rejected the arbitration by the Central Labour Commission on July 3rd. As a consequence, KFIU went to vote on the strike plan from July 11 and 91% of voters (73,360 union members) voted in favour of the strike



The Korean unions have 6 key demands:

1. to provide free-interest rate tuition loans to university students (200,000 students).

2. to reduce long working hours and extend work-sharing to hire youth labour force.

3. to stop hire illegal workers and to eliminate illegal work from 2015.

4. to extend the retirement age (currently 60 year old) and guarantee the employment security for senior aged workers

and implement gender equality policies and practices.

5. to stop the Woori Bank privatization plan and cancel any large "bank-first" plan (too-big-to-fail theory is not applicable in this case).

6. to stop the nomination of CEOs based on vested interests and government intrusive management into the financial institutions.

Kim Moon-Ho ,KFIU President, delivered a speech to his union members for restoration of basic role of banks on July 26