14) SOUTH KOREA PUSHES RAIL PRIVATIZATION

 

By Sean Burton, Seoul, January 8, 2014

 

            December was a wild month for organized labour in South Korea. A strike and a series of demonstrations occurred throughout much of the month, spurred by fear of the Park government's privatization plans.

 

            For some time, concerns were being raised by workers at KORAIL, South Korea's national railway company, of government moves to privatize part of the Korea Train Express (KTX), which provides express passenger service from one end of the country to the other. But the only route considered profitable is the main line being from Seoul to Busan. A new line under construction will run parallel to the current route, but depart from a different location outside of central Seoul. The fear is that this line would have a separate operator, divert resources away from KORAIL, and result in significant layoffs.

 

            The Park government claimed that its plan is to split ownership of the line between KORAIL and government stakeholders; public funds such as the national pension would be used to buy up 59% of the company and prevent private investment. The Korean Railway Workers' Union (KRWU) felt that the arrangement could easily be twisted to allow for a backdoor privatization of the line.

 

            The KRWU began a strike on December 9 under the aegis of protesting privatization. The strike was declared illegal, and the police assaulted the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) head offices on Dec. 23 in a hunt to arrest KRWU leaders. They could not be found, but nearly 130 others were seized, and pepper spray was also employed.

 

            The KCTU called for all‑out support of the railway union with a general strike and demonstration. On Dec. 28, as many as 100,000 people gathered in central Seoul to show solidarity. Groups of university students participated in the events, a show of civil awareness that has been somewhat uncommon in recent years here.

 

            The strike was called off on Dec. 31 as the government prepared a special committee to address the concerns raised by the protests. But there is no explicit promise to prevent a subsidiary from taking over the line in question, and internal KORAIL documents seem to indicate that privatization was the ultimate goal in any case.

 

            KCTU rallies have continued, and the privatization struggle seems to have merged with the issue of the National Intelligence Service interfering in favour of Park Geun‑hye's presidential campaign via Twitter. According to Hankyoreh Shinmun, tweets made by NIS agents amounted to 30% of the total of all tweets by registered Koreans - nearly 22 million were systematically posted and retweeted.

 

            On New Year's Eve, 40‑year-old Lee Jong‑nam stood on a major road near Seoul Station and set himself on fire to demand the resignation of the president. Lee perished from his injuries. Police claimed that he committed suicide due to financial problems, but his diary and subsequent family investigations have discredited that argument.

 

            The KCTU is calling for the president to step down, and events are still touch‑and‑go. The National Assembly passed a reform bill on Dec. 31, meant to stiffen punishments for political interference. But the bill amounts to mere internal guidelines stipulating that agents should only gather intelligence when it is within the law; in other words, little more than a slap on the wrist and a farcical assumption that the NIS will engage in self-corrective behaviour.

 

(The above article is from the January 16-31, 2014, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)