Union overcoming barriers

Contract workers hired by Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction (HHIC) management set up a barbed-wire fence above the wall of the Yeongdo shipyard in Busasn where Kim Jin-suk, 51, a member of the Busan office Direction Committee for the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), and 12 HHIC union members occupy Crane No. 85 to continue their protest against massive layoffs, June 28.

Kim and 12 union members have continued a sit-in protest on the crane under the strong wind, pouring rain and isolation after the HHIC union leaders made the decision to call off its general strike after 190 days and return to work the day prior. The morning of that day, the HHIC management cut off the supply of electricity.

Some 80 members who were forced out of the site, including 13 who voluntarily came down from the crane, staged a sit-in and slept on the street across the shipyard, while not coming back home.

Meanwhile, the union leaders said to the Hankyoreh that they had to call off the six-month-long sit-in protest to evade ‘fine bombs’ as much as 1 million won per day that was expected to be imposed on the members who participated in the protest, describing the decision as an inevitable choice.