Ssangyong Motor union leaders remain in jail

Following an appeal from the IMF affiliated KMWU the Seoul High Court released 21 union activists, three other union leaders are still in jail.

KOREA: According to the report received from the IMF affiliate Korean Metalworkers' Union (KMWU) on August 9, 2010, following a KMWU appeal the Seoul High Court decided to reduce sentence of imprisonment for Mr. Han Sang-kyun, the former Chairman of the KMWU Ssangyong Motor Company Union from four years to three years.

The court also freed other 21 trade unionists imprisoned under the same case. However, they are all released under three or four year stay of execution to their sentences, which in practice means they are treated like convicted criminals. If arrested during this period they will have to serve out the full term of their court sentences, inevitably resulting in severe restrictions of their union activities.

Mr. Kwon Sun-man, a KMWU vice president, will be released in October while, KMWU executive member Mr. Kim Hyuk, is still serving a 3 year sentence.

One year ago IMF reported on the 77 day strike of KMWU Ssangyong Motor members started after the company in violation of the existing collective agreement ordered mass dismissals without notifying the union. Later that year in August Ssangyong Motor management broke off negotiations and demanded riot police to storm the plant's paint shop where workers held a sit-in strike since May 2009.

The inhumane treatment and assault on 700 autoworkers holding a sit-in strike at Ssangyong Motor has shocked the world inciting outcry from Amnesty International, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and international unions who held protests at Ssangyong dealerships and Korean embassies around the globe.