Yesterday's Yonhap reported the following:
Hyundai Motor contract workers taken into custody...
see link CINA
http://blog.jinbo.net/CINA/?m=2006-02
Scores of non-regular workers of Hyundai Motor (factory in Ulsan) were taken into custody Monday during a heavy clash with riot police in a rally to demand formal employee status with the country's largest automaker.
More than 300 unionized contract workers were staging a protest in front of their factories in this city, 414 kilometers southeast of Seoul. Riot police used tear gas to disperse the demonstrators after a series of physical confrontations, but the workers reassembled at another factory building and were continuing their protest, according to witnesses.
And here's yesterday's news report by AFP:
Twenty injured in clash at Hyundai car factory
South Korea's top automaker Hyundai Motor said Monday that 20 people were injured in a violent protest by hundreds of temporary workers.
The company said 20 of its permanent employees were injured in an attempt to drive out temporary workers who have occupied an auto plant in the southeastern city of Ulsan.
Riot police used tear gas to end a violent protest by hundreds of temporary workers inside and outside the factory and detained 50 demonstrators, Yonhap news agency said.
Some temporary workers were injured, it said.
The dispute began when a contractor took over the company's car seat production. Temporary workers have refused to sign contracts with the new company, demanding formal employee status.
South Korea has an estimated 5.3-million "non-regular" or temporary workers, whose bosses are unwilling to employ them on a permanent basis, which would give them greater rights.
The union of Hyundai Motor's full-time workers has a history of militancy, going on strike almost every year since its establishment in 1987.
But in 2009 it had its strike-free year in a decade and a half after union leaders promised to help it ride out the global downturn. The union also agreed a wage deal in July 2010, marking its second year without a strike...
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TRAGETY OF YONGSAN
http://blog.jinbo.net/CINA/2330
Jeon Jae-sook, 68, third from right, cries out in grief after hearing the verdict of the Yongsan redevelopment tragedy and hugs her daughter-in-law Jeong Young-shin in front of the Supreme Court in Seoul’s Seocho District, Nov. 11. Jeon lost husband Lee Sang-lim and the government imprisoned her son Lee Chung-yeon due to the Yongsan Tragedy in 2009 that took the lives of five civilians and one police officer.
The Yongsan area was designated a redevelopment zone by the Lee Myung-bak administration, and many of the area’s poor residents were forcibly evicted and received paltry compensation.
Finalizing 22 months of disputes over a major fire that broke out during the police crackdown on the residents’ protest, the Supreme Court upheld Thursday the Court of Appeals verdict which pronounced nine protesters guilty, saying, “they illegally occupied a building’s rooftop in Yongsan to protest Seoul City’s urban redevelopment project.”
“The original verdict was correct in stating that the police’s operations to quell the protest were not conducting their duties improperly,” the top court said. “Molotov cocktails thrown by the protesters caused the fires at the guard tower.”
As a result, two protesters, including Lee Chung-yeon, 37-years-old and a leader of an association of Yongsan residents who were refused eviction, were sentenced five years in prison. Other five protesters, including a Mr. Kim, were founded in four years, while another defendant were found three years in prison with a four year suspended sentence and the last one two years in prison with a three year suspended sentence. The prosecutors previously cleared police officers of wrongdoing in an investigation marred by fair trial violations.
In response, the defendants said they will appeal the case to the United Nations in regard to human rights violations. Park Rae-goon, an advocate of the convicted protesters, said a group of lawyers would file a complaint with the UN Human Rights Commission.
“I believe the UN will take it differently,” Park told reporters after the ruling. “The police did not operate by the rules during the suppression. But the court ruled the protestors were fully liable for the incident. It is unfair.”
Meanwhile, the case against the police officers including then-Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Commissioner Kim Seok-ki is on trial at the Supreme Court. Evicted Yongsan residents filed the case, arguing that the police’s crackdown was improper.
The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) issued an opinion in February confirming that the behavior of the police during the crackdown was illegal, and recommended indicting members of the police leadership, SMPA Commissioner Kim.
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_entertainment/448409.html
* The report has been filed under "Entertainment"(sic)!
Ermm, entertainment...?? Yeah, of course it's "entertainment"!! But only for the S. Korean ruling class, especially the Construction Mafia!!!
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Sentence is upheld in Yongsan fire
November 12, 2010
Finalizing 22 months of disputes over a major fire in Yongsan District - in which one SWAT officer and five squatters were killed - the Supreme Court upheld a sentence that convicted nine protesters on charges of setting fires at a building there in 2009.
The Supreme Court confirmed yesterday that Molotov cocktails thrown by the nine protesters caused the fires at the building and that operations by the SWAT officers were legally appropriate.
“The original verdict is right in that the defendants’ acts prevented SWAT officers from conducting their duties,” the court said. Seven protesters were given four to five years in prison. The other two were also involved in the incident, but the court determined that their role in setting the fire was less significant than that of the other seven protesters and they were given two and three year sentences, respectively.
Residents evicted from a redevelopment site in Yongsan took over the five-story Namildang Building on Jan. 19, 2009, demanding higher compensation for properties they owned that were to be demolished by a government-led redevelopment project.
When police dropped out of a helicopter and onto the roof of the building to eject the squatters on Jan. 20, a fire broke out. Prosecutors said on Feb. 9 last year that the squatters threw paint thinner and Molotov cocktails at the building. Initially, there was no decision in the first trial, which started on April 22, 2009, because lawyers and defendants repeatedly argued that prosecutors did not open the fire investigation records. Eventually though, the court convicted the squatters on Oct. 28, 2009. A second trial this May confirmed the first decision.
The defendants said they will appeal the case to the United Nations in regard to human rights violations.
By Kim Hee-jin [heejin@joongang.co.kr]
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