Video: Woman Welder Sits In Atop Crane to Protest Job Cuts

[Omaha Steve]

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cceCcIRyGz0

by Kap Su Seol | Thu, 07/14/2011 - 12:57pm

Nine thousand college students, labor activists, and human rights advocates from across South Korea began to gather at the center of the port city of Busan July 9. They came to support a woman welder named Kim Jin-suk who has been staging a lone sit-in since January on top of a 115-foot shipyard crane. The demonstration became a 48-hour intermittent clash with riot police, who used clubs and fired tear gas liquid from water cannons to keep Kim’s supporters away.

Because of rows of police cordons, the protesters, who call themselves the Hope Riders, could not march about two miles to reach the shipyard of Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Co. (HHIC), where the 52-year-old Kim has been squatting to protest job cuts. She is now waging one of the most important fights of her life after spending much of it helping build the independent labor movement in South Korea. The Hope Riders have called another big rally for July 30.

The momentum has caused HHIC to step up an offensive. On Tuesday Kim tweeted that security guards had begun to deploy a safety net around her crane, the usual sign of a plan to take her out by force. Yesterday they cut off her food supplies. Electricity was cut off in June.

Send your solidarity message to Kim Jin-suk via Twitter at JINSUK_85. Her supporters’ website is here. You can call HHIC at 011-82-51-410-3114.
Sit-In Begins

At dawn on January 6, Kim began her sit-in against HHIC’s plans to shed 400 workers, in the control room of crane No. 85. This was the same place where in October 2003 her co-worker Kim Ju-ik ended his 129-day sit-in against 600 job cuts by committing suicide. HHIC had gotten a court to charge Kim Ju-ik 1 million won ($1,000) a day because of a wildcat strike he had caused. About one week after his death, another union representative killed himself.

When the job cuts were announced in December 2010, workers wildcatted and Kim began her sit-in. HHIC quickly won an injunction allowing it to slap each striking worker with $1,000 in damages a day. In February, the company locked the workers out. In June, union leaders agreed to end the strike in return for the company’s promise to increase the number of early retirements in the job cuts.

FULL story at link.

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