News

Following the visit to meet Bro. Han Sang-Kyun, KCTU President at Seoul Detention Office on June 24th Andy Snoddy UNI Global Union Director of Organising and Tamai Satoshi UNI APRO Director of Organising on behalf of UNI mission issued the following statement.

“We are deeply concerned by the government’s blatant disregard for international labour standards in law and practice. Of particular concern, we understand that many labour leaders and workers are in jail or prison today, under the obstruction of general traffic, for engaging in industrial action that would be legal elsewhere in the world. Korea does so despite clear direction from the International Labour Organization that the imprisonment of trade unionists for engaging in peaceful strikes is strictly prohibited. Further, it does not even appear that their imprisonment is legal under the developing jurisprudence in Korea. These efforts to destroy unions by removing their leaders are often compounded by outrageous damages lawsuits against unions that have no purpose but to bankrupt them.

We therefore call on the government to immediately release all workers jailed or in prison today for their strike activity, including Bro. Han Sang-Kyun President of KCTU who we met in custody during our mission to visit Seoul Detention Office on June 24th..

We also strongly condemn the illegal raids on Trade Union Offices including the illegal raid on KCTU offices on 21st December last year.

It is now two decades since the Republic of Korea joined the ILO and 20 years since it joined the OECD, It gave then commitments to bring its laws and practices into line with international standards on fundamental workers’ rights including on collective bargaining and freedom of association. The progress that was made in this direction is now being dramatically reversed.

UNI Global Union and the international trade union movement will stand by the Korean Trade Union movement. Together, we will use all political and legal mechanisms available to us to ensure that human and trade union rights are fully respected in Korea.