In the last couple of days, our worst fears about the railway strike in South Korea have come true.
Severe repression has kicked in as police stormed the headquarters of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) -- for the first time since the union became legal back in 1999.
Smashing down glass doors, spraying pepper gas, the police arrested well over 100 union activists -- but didn't find the leaders of the striking railway workers they'd come to arrest.
The KCTU has decided to call a general strike for December 28th.
These Korean workers, fighting against privatization and for the basic human right to strike, are now on the very front lines of the battle against neo-liberalism and for human dignity.
I know that many of you will not see this message until after the Christmas holiday.
I also know that 90% of the people receiving this message have not yet sent off their messages of protest and solidarity. If you're part of that 90%, please take a moment right now to send off your message demanding that the Korean government allow the railway workers to peacefully strike:
http://bit.ly/1aUdMGq
If have already send off your message, please try to recruit just one more person who's not done so. If everyone who supported this campaign recruited just one more person, it would be the largest online campaign LabourStart has ever waged.
In addition, I'm going to ask you to do one more thing.
The mainstream media, incredibly, is completely ignoring this important struggle. LabourStart has tons of links to news stories, but these are largely from Korean media.
If you visit the websites of the BBC, CNN, and Sky News, you won't see a single word about the strike, the repression, and so on.
I've just written to all of them asking them why they're not covering the Korean strike. I think it would help if you added your voices to mine.
Here's how to do it:
BBC - go here and fill in the form at the very bottom of the page
CNN - go here
Sky News - email them at news@sky.com
Thanks very much -- and a very festive holiday season to all of you.
No comments:
Post a Comment