More than 23,000 South Korean construction industry drivers went on strike yesterday, joining truckers in a protest over rising oil prices that has intensified pressure on President Lee Myung-bak.
The militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) said all its 15,000 members driving dump trucks, bulldozers and concrete mixer lorries walked off the job yesterday. The Federation of Korean Trade Unions reported that its 8,500 operators of construction vehicles followed suit.
The striking construction workers are pressing for cheaper fuel and higher pay.
PHOTO: AP
The militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions was expected later to announce that it will call on its more than 600,000 members to stage a walkout to demonstrate opposition to Lee’s privatization and pension reform plans.
The ministry of land, transport and maritime affairs expressed regret and urged strikers to return to work as quickly as possible to stop building sites grinding to a halt.
The protest by thousands of truck drivers, now in its fourth day, has already crippled the nation’s major ports and inland cargo terminals. Shipping containers are stacking up as trucks stay idle.
The country’s biggest port of Busan, which handles more than 70 percent of the nation’s container traffic, struggled to keep its yards from being clogged up by stalled cargo. Military drivers were helping move the containers.
Authorities were also moving cargo onto trains to try to lessen the strike’s impact. Police were forced to escort non-striking truck drivers to work because of protesting pickets.
Defense minister Lee Sang-hee ordered the military to send more drivers and run their own 127 cargo trucks “around the clock.”
“This logistics disorder is a social disaster,” he said during a visit to a cargo terminal south of Seoul.
But some port officials demanded Seoul face the crisis straightforwardly and focus on brokering a solution.
“The government should stop right now relying only on the useless ‘risk management manual,’” an official at Busan port told Yonhap.
“It needs to realize the crisis it is facing, while the shipping companies and their owners must initiate a resolution of the conflict,” the official said.
Lee Myung-bak’s multiple missteps since his election win, such as having to withdraw his nominations for some top posts and the beef import debacle, have unleashed a torrent of criticism, which has clearly caught the government off-guard.
He is widely expected to ditch a number of top aides and ministers soon and may even face the humiliating prospect of inviting his chief conservative rival to become prime minister to help raise his popularity, which has tumbled to under 20 percent.
On Sunday, Finance Minister Kang Man-soo said the government was reviewing its policies in the face of mounting public anger. But he did not say how far Seoul might be prepared to water down the sweeping reforms it said it would enact to boost local and foreign investment and make the country better able to compete with Japan and China.
Also see: Seoul, Washington negotiators extend beef talks: ministry
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