#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #SERBIA #ANARCHISM #News #Journal #Update - (en) Serbia, ASI SK, Direct Action: HOW WORKERS IN KOREAN MARKETS FIGHT FOR BETTER WORKING CONDITIONS (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Here is another story, how, ten years ago, my colleagues from Korea fought for

two years and got everything they asked for! ---- Another bright example of
workers' organization and struggle, this time in trade, comes from South Korea.
The strike was launched by the E-Land union and lasted for 510 days. Started on
June 10, 2006, and ended in victory on November 13, 2008. The main demand was the
abolition of the system of temporary-occasional (PP) employment, but also an
increase in salaries and benefits. ---- Temporary-occasional employment took off
in South Korea in the late 1990s, when the country fell into an economic crisis.
With this type of employment, states and companies reduced labor prices and basic
labor rights and benefits. Employees on PP contracts are often denied the right
to paid sick leave and vacation, health insurance, compensation in case of job
loss and pension. After the economic crisis ended in 2001, the PP employment
system was maintained, and the E-Land Group, the owner of one of the largest
retail chains in South Korea, benefited from it, among others. The largest share
of the workforce in E-Land stores were workers employed on PP contracts.
In 2006, a legal act came into force which guaranteed permanent employment and
all benefits to workers in PP employment status after two years of continuous
employment. The E-Land group then hired several permanent workers, while about
570 were fired from PP contracts. The dismissals resulted in a mass strike
organized by the E-Land Workers' Union, one of the first unions of PP employees.
The union demanded the annulment of the PP employment system and the
re-employment of fired workers.
When the reactions of E-Land and the daughter company were absent after two
suspensions, the strike intensified. On June 30, the occupation began, that is,
the blockade of the outlet of one of the subsidiaries of the E-Land company,
located in the shopping complex of the stadium in Seoul, built for the World Cup.
The blockade lasted for 21 days, and it was broken by the police when a football
match of the Korean A-League was held at the stadium. The strike continued in the
form of pickets (protests in front of stores, aimed at deterring customers and
reducing profits), at various locations across Seoul, where leaflets were
distributed calling for a consumer boycott of E-Land. These actions attracted the
attention of the public and the media, as well as the support of various
organizations.
Pressure with protests, blockades, pickets, strikes and boycotts put the owners
in an unfavorable financial situation and they were forced to sell their shops,
so Samsung Tesko bought Homever outlets from E-Land in May 2008. The strike
continued under new ownership. It was completed only in November 2008, after the
union was guaranteed that employees through PP contracts would be employed
permanently after 16 months, followed by a salary increase, as well as an
increase in benefits. In addition, it is guaranteed that the 12 arrested union
leaders will be released.
All guarantees have been fulfilled, and brave and persistent workers in trade
have won better working and living conditions for themselves and their families,
and to the whole world another in a series of examples of how we can achieve
victories through direct actions and organization!
The best time to start is today, talk to your colleagues, connect and prepare for
a joint initiative! Until the non-working week and the improvement of working
conditions of workers in shops!
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A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
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