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Korean KCTU Statement On IMF & Kim (fwd)
On the President Kim Dae-jung's "Dialogue with the Nation" TV
Program
- It Is Inevitable to Secede from the Tripartite Commission without
Stoppage of Structural Adjustment Focused on Redundancy
Dismissal
February 22, 1999
Korean Confederation of Trade Unions
1. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions cannot but be
disappointed at the President Kim's viewpoint on job security issue,
which was shown through "Dialogue with the Nation", and cannot
but point out that his consciousness on the current situation is too
naive. Especially, in the dialogue, he argued that the redundancy
dismissal, if necessary, must be implemented according to the related
law and the labor camp's assertion of unilateral burden-sharing is
simply wrong, which is totally ignoring our demand on job security
and will worsen labor-managment relationship by lowering credit on
the government.
2. The President Kim is trying to averting his eyes from the serious
unemployment rate which has been caused by the IMF dictated
structural adjustment for last year and is likely to be worsened
much further. He talks only about a baseless rosy future saying
there is a light in the end of tunnel and we should go ahead
tightening our belt. He is actually ignoring the destruction of our
social community. Moreover, it is to give up his position as a
peoples' president that he compels the workers who have no other
measures for living to accept layoff and wage cut. Especially, he
assert that the tripartite commission is an organization for workers,
which is to conceal the nature and reality of the commission that
has become a tool for downsizing and massive layoff. Isn't it the
reality that the agreed promises are not kept by the commission?
The president, however, argues as if the labor camp raised issues
without proper reasons, and made the dialogue with the nation into
unilateral propaganda. There is another reason for our suspicion. The
KCTU's vice-president Heo Young-goo, who had been selected as
one of the panels for the dialogue program, was excluded finally,
thus we cannot but believe that the purpose of the program is to
attribute the responsibility of the commission's failure to the KCTU.
3. We, the KCTU, demand strongly once again that the President
Kim should not ask continuance of the tripartite commission, which
has become a tool for redundancy dismissal, and unilateral
pain-sharing of workers, but establish nationwide countermeasure to
unemployment problem by work sharing through stoppage of
redundancy dismissal and reduction of working time. The
government also, if it worries honestly about the living rights of
working people, who are suffering from massive layoffs and wage
cutm, and the whole social community, must not compel the
workers' sacrifice but start a total reform including reform on
corrupt politics and returning to society of chaebol owners' property.
The president Kim must remember that the economic and labor
policies which are based on neoliberalistic structural adjustment and
flexibilization of labor market will be faced with massive resistance
by the working people. We clearly speaking, he must know that, in
the current situation of forcible structural adjustment without
measures for living rights, our secession from the tripartite
commission is inevitable. We hope that the president Kim would not
ruin social consolidation because of far-right forces and
Americanized economic bureaucrats.
4. In this situation, if the president and the government still warns
punishment on non-cooperation with their pro-employer policies
without considering unemployment problems, the KCTU will wage
an all-out struggle. We hope their prudent decision. The KCTU is
ready to discuss the government and employers' organization on the
job security and social reform issues whenever and wherever. If the
president keeps turning away from dialogue on our issues and
attributing responsibility to workers, the relations among labor,
managment, and the government will remain disrupted, let alone
stranding of the tripartite commission. Thus, the KCTU now
clarifies that the responsibility for conflict and tension in the three
parties' relations which will ensue from our secession from it is due
to the president's wrong circunstantial judgment and pro-employer
economic policies.
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Policy & Information Center for International Solidarity
Website : http://www.jinbo.net/~picis
E-mail : hanboss@nownuri.net picis_korea@hotmail.com
Address : PICIS, 1410-3, Taekwang Bdg. 5F, Shilim 5 Dong,
Kwanak-Ku, Seoul, Korea
Fax : ++82 2 877 4353
Phone : ++82 2 886 2853
Mailinglist : inter-picis@list.jinbo.net (To join, send a message to
this
address, with the word 'subscribe picis' as the only text in the
message. To cancel subscription, 'unsubscribe picis'.)
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