Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières
In the face of widespread repression, South Korean workers are rising up for fair pay and labor protections.
Within the past two years, South Korea has seen major labor actions. Hundreds of thousands of workers have mobilized in response to multiple calls for general strikes, and the (...)
Among their demands include a nurse-to-patient ratio of 1:5 and the strengthening of public health care
Unionized health care and medical workers in Korea went on general strike on Thursday to demand better working conditions to allow them to better care for patients.
The Korean Health (...)
After the self-immolation protest death of a union leader, South Korean construction workers have held daily candlelight vigils and mobilized in the tens of thousands against President Yoon’s war on labor.
On May 1, 2023, Yang Hoe-Dong, district leader of the Korean Construction Workers’ (...)
One hundred and thirty thousand South Korean workers rallied across 14 cities on May 1. Organisers estimate 80,000 took part In the country’s capital, Seoul. It was the largest turnout for a political rally in the country since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The rally was endorsed by (...)
On May Day, a local union leader surnamed Yang, from the Korean Construction Workers Union (KCWU), set himself on fire outside of a court to protest the concerted prosecution against trade unionists like him for carrying out union organizing activities.
A number of construction workers’ (...)
The above was a front page headline for a story that appeared in the May 3 New York Times.
The “comfort women”, a euphemism for Korean women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese colonial government during the Second World War, are well known.
Now newly released South Korean (...)
The rendition of Don McLean’s classic pop song American Pie by Yoon Suk Yeol may have dominated the headlines as the South Korean president enjoyed dinner at the White House with Joe Biden – Yoon is, reportedly, a devotee of “noraebang”, Korean karaoke. But the frivolity of the moment was a (...)
In recent times, there is growing discussion around the crisis of social reproduction and care. South Korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world, while Japan is similarly wrestling with the same issue and a fast aging population. Even China has seen its population fall for the first time (...)
In December 2022, TruckSol, a trade union of South Korean truck drivers, waged a massive 16-day strike that cost employers over $2 billion. The union’s history and organizing strategy have lessons for precariously employed workers around the world.
In the 1970s, my grandfather bought a (...)
On January 24, women trade unionists in the Philippines held a silent protest in front of the Makati Diamond Hotel where the International Labour Organization (ILO) High Level Tripartite Mission (HLTM) had meetings with government agencies.
They chanted, “Women workers united, will never be (...)
On 18 January, the National Intelligence Service raided the headquarters of Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU). What happened, and why? Here is an Explainer.
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Editor’s Note:
On 18 January, the National Intelligence Service and police raided the headquarters of (...)
In South Korea, there was a focus on hate and discrimination against transgender people in 2020 and 2021, when the Covid-19 backlash targeted LGBTIQ people.
Byun Hui-su, the first known transgender soldier in South Korea, wanted a transfer to the military’s female corps after undergoing (...)
Feminists in South Korea are planning to conduct nationwide protests against gender-based violence this weekend, the first to occur simultaneously in several major cities since the pandemic.
It’s a response to an anti-feminist wave that has swept across South Korea, creating a tense gender (...)
For several days from 8 August, heavy rains fell continuously mainly in the Seoul metropolitan area, flooding homes, roads and subway stations of Seoul. By 10 August, at least 11 people had been killed, about 570 had temporarily lost their homes, and seven others were missing as a result of (...)
In 1995, Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing declared gender mainstreaming as major global strategy. The strategy aimed at making feminism to the mainstream in the context of the global neoliberal era. The strategy promoted abolition of discrimination against women in the institutional (...)
In the South Korean presidential election conducted on March 9, Yun Seok-yeol of the conservative opposition party “People Power Party (PPP)” won over Lee Jae-myung of the progressive ruling party "Democratic Party of Korea (DPK)” by a narrow margin of 240,000 votes. The vote percentages for (...)
The hostility of the conservative party has pushed the disability-rights movement to the center of a larger fight for minority groups in South Korea.
SEOUL—April 15 marked the 91st day of a dramatic confrontation at Hyehwa station in the middle of the South Korean capital. Disability rights (...)
0. Introduction
With 2022 beginning, South Korea’s left remains extremely divided and politically fragmented. In terms of institutional politics, the only left-wing party in parliament is Shim Sang-jung’s Justice Party (JP), nominally the third party in parliament with just 6 seats out of (...)
In a predawn raid on September 2, the South Korean government arrested Yang Kyung-soo, president of the country’s largest labor confederation. Yang is the thirteenth president of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions in a row to be jailed.
Before dawn on September 2, 2021, hundreds of (...)
4 September, 2021IndustriALL Global Union is outraged over the arrest of KCTU president YANG Kyeung-soo in the early hours of 2 September. The arrest came after Korean police raided the KCTU headquarters, dragging out YANG Kyeung-soo.
An arrest warrant had been issued 20 days earlier by the (...)
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