S. Korean Official Offers Meeting to Defuse Strikes

Aiming to defuse South Korea’s sizzling labor crisis, ruling party Chairman Lee Hong Koo today offered to meet opposition leaders and introduce safeguards on job security. But union leaders rejected the gesture and vowed to continue their strike.

The impasse sets the stage for a violent showdown, as reports mount that the government will storm Myongdong Cathedral this week and arrest seven labor leaders being harbored inside. Senior prosecutor Choe Pyong Guk said Wednesday that the government would not hesitate to take “stern measures to maintain law and order in our country,” adding that the workers were jeopardizing national security.

“Workers have taken the law into their own hands as they demonstrate in the street or walk out of workplaces,” Choe said, adding that the protracted labor strife could be used by elements supporting North Korea to attempt to topple the government. His remarks fanned public fears that the government was reverting to the authoritarian tactics of past regimes in using the Pyongyang threat to suppress legitimate democratic expression.

Meanwhile, opposition leaders Kim Dae Jong and Kim Jong Pil announced Wednesday that they would side with workers, shifting the labor dispute into a full-blown political confrontation.

The labor crisis has raged since Dec. 26, when the ruling New Korea Party rammed through controversial revisions to labor and national security laws in a secret predawn National Assembly session. Although national strikes this week fell far short of projected goals--drawing about 600,000 by union count and one-sixth that by government count--they have shut down several major businesses and cost the economy more than $2 billion.

Most experts believe that South Korea’s limping economy desperately needs restructuring--including the new law’s provisions to allow layoffs more easily, hire contract employees and introduce flextime. But workers here are accustomed to lifetime employment and see the provisions as a major threat to their job security.

Chairman Lee said his ruling party was willing to introduce supplemental legislation to safeguard job security, immediately reconvene the National Assembly to debate the revisions, hold a televised debate with union representatives and meet with opposition leaders.

But Kwon Young Gil, president of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, rejected Lee’s gestures as “political show” and said the union is ready to continue the strike. But he said the union would retaliate with an all-out work stoppage if prosecutors arrest him and his colleagues.