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Korean retailer E.Land is now out to destroy its workers' trade union. Negotiations are continued quite apparently only to keep up an appearance of trying to seek a solution at the bargaining table. At the same time, government support is sought to make it impossible for the union to defend its dismissed members.

Three thousand E.land workers and other trade unionists were met by 10,000 heavily equipped riot police when they demonstrated outside the Seoul World Cup Stadium Homever hypermarket last Saturday. Their employer continues to rely on police force and repression rather than to negotiate a settlement with the union. Three union leaders are now detained and huge compensation claims have been filed by the Korean retailer.

If the company would have been serious, it could have ended the labour conflict last Friday night by signing an agreement with the union. The substance differences were not very big anymore, the company had been forced to retreat on many points and the union was prepared to seek compromises.

Instead, E.Land chose to send only second string negotiators to meet the union. Not surprisingly, these management representatives had nothing new to come with.

Instead, the retailer continues to seek government support for its efforts to end the labour conflict by police intervention and force. On Friday, the day after the International Labour Organisation called for the release from of the unions president, two further union representatives  - the vice president and the general secretary - were imprisoned.

10,000 riot police met 3,000 demonstrators

On Saturday, 3,000 E.Land workers and supporters held a rally at the Homever hypermarket and Seoul's World Cup Stadium. The store, which E.Land bought from Carrefour last year, was encircled by 10,000 riot police. Inside the police lines, the Korean retail chain had posted hundreds of thugs, young men reportedly hired from manpower agencies. When UNI representatives saw a group of them, they were being trained by management representatives how to physically attack 'wrong people' trying to enter the store.

UNI's Jay Choi (left) and Jan Furstenborg assured the E.Land workers that they will continue to have strong international support for their efforts to force the company to cancel its mass dismissals. Also Eiichi Ito from UNI's regional office for Asia and the Pacific participated in the manifestation and in talks with union federation KFSU on Friday. Later, the UNI delegation visited the detained union representatives at Seoul's Mapo police station.

Early Sunday morning, a new sit-in strike started at the New Core department store which was already once the scene for in-house picketing, before riot police carried out the pickets a week and a half ago. Once again, some 1,500 heavily equipped police have closed up around the 300 or so E.Land employees inside, mainly young women workers.

Repression instead of negotiations

Instead of focusing on the original reason for the conflict - E.Land's mass dismissal of non-regular workers in an effort to avoid giving them regular contracts as required by a new law - the employer and the government try to make the process of free collective bagaining impossible.

Locking up union representatives in jail and raising lawsuits against individual workers to be able to terminate their employment without reason are tools which the company has chosen. These are complemented by hair-raising compensation claims on all union structures whom E.Land can somehow connect with the labour conflict.

Sentiments in Seoul are that E.Land has probably overstretched itself when buying Carrefour's 32 hypermarkets for some 1.5 Billion USD last year. Now, management makes the workers pay for this, in a desperate attempt to cut operating expenses, many observers say. They also refer to several competitors who have proceeded with regularising non-regular employees such as the new law on protecting non-regular workers requires.

For more stories and pictures on the E.Land workers' struggle, go to the dedicated UNI Commerce webpage:

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