Deplorable State of S. Korean Workers Disclosed

  Pyongyang, June 24 (KCNA) -- The National Reunification Institute issued a white paper Wednesday disclosing the miserable state of south Korean workers attributable to the puppet forces' unpopular rule.
    The number of the unemployed has shown an exponential increase in recent years, becoming a serious social problem, the white paper said, and went on:
    The number was over 3.5 million in 2013 which rose to at least 4.5 million in 2014 and more than 500 000 of them gave up employment. And the number of underemployed increased to 10 million from 8 million in the period.
    What is all the more serious is the problem of jobless young people.
    Earlier this year the rate of young people without job was 21.8 percent, an increase from the time of massive unemployment that was caused by group bankruptcy after 1997 currency run. The rate was estimated to be higher than the average unemployment rate among the member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and regions.
    University graduates without jobs showed a record high of 2.75 million.
    The severity of youth unemployment in south Korea can be seen in the fact that youth are giving up love, marriage and childbirth plus housing and getting relations with people.
    This notwithstanding, the present chief executive is enticing young people into going abroad, saying they can get jobs only when they go abroad.
    But young south Koreans only meet national humiliation and contempt and miserable death.
    The proportion of part-time workers under less than a year contract has reached 37.1 %, the highest among major capitalist countries and in the region.
    What is all the more deplorable is the pervasive "status system" which says children with part-time worker parents have to be part-timers.
    The white paper revealed the fact that south Korean workers are doing labor under extremely poor working conditions.
    According to data underreported by the south Korean relevant authorities, the number of victims of industrial disaster was over 90 900 or more than 240 on a daily average across south Korea last year and among them the number of those who suffered from accidents were more than 83 200 and victims of occupational disease by harmful materials were over 7 600.
    The mortality rate due to industrial disaster topped the world list being 2 or 4 times higher than that in major capitalist countries.
    CNN in an article introducing south Korea in August last year said weekly work hours of workers in south Korea is 12 hours longer than an average work hours of people in other parts of the world, adding daily sleeping hours of south Korean workers are less than six hours.
    Yet, they fail to get even the minimum wages for doing hard work.
    In south Korea where the jungle law prevails, employment crime whereby the rights of workers are mercilessly violated is ubiquitous.
    What is all the more serious is that teenagers, the disabled and women are taken as "labor force easy to be hired with meager wage".
    Child labor is internationally banned but teenagers are subject to harsh forced labor in south Korea today.
    74.2 percent of teenagers working in the service fields in Seoul are doing slave labor without contract. Exploitation of the disabled is making people tremble with horror as it is beyond human imagination.
    According to a report released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the rate of women taking part in economic activities and their employment rate, ages 25 to 54, are 62.8 percent and 61.2 percent each, the lowest among the member countries and in the region.
    What is all the more problematic is the serious sexual violence committed against women workers at work sites.
    In March this year the British magazine Economist ridiculed at the worst discrimination against south Korean women in the world.
    A broad segment of the toiling masses of south Korea are protesting against the present authorities' unpopular labor policy that benefits the big businesses.
    More than 20 workers committed suicide unable to stand suppression of trade unions and lay-off after the present regime took office.
    Workers are staging sit-ins, risking their lives.
    Getting all the more fierce is protest of workers against the unpopular rule by the authorities keen on intensifying suppression.
    All facts go to clearly prove that south Korea is the world's worst tundra of human rights and a dark society where democracy and human rights can not be found.
    However, the present south Korean ruling quarters slander the most advantageous labor system in the DPRK where genuine popular policies are enforced and speak ill of those who are working abroad with an intention to be helpful to the system. This is a ridiculous provocative act.
    The puppet forces should clearly understand that their anti-DPRK "human rights" racket in collusion with outsiders will precipitate their destruction. -0-

S. Korean Regime's Anti-DPRK "Human Rights" Racket Assailed

  Pyongyang, June 11 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Central Committee of the General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea on Thursday made public a statement accusing the south Korean puppet group of kicking up a frantic anti-DPRK racket.
    The south Korean puppet authorities let subsidized institutes and anti-DPRK "human rights" bodies made up of riff-raffs spout a litany of such invectives as painting those workers sent by the DPRK to different countries for external economic cooperation as "ones engaged in slave labor" and "subject to exploitation."
    They, at the same time, brought the "human rights" issue of workers of the DPRK overseas for discussion at the meeting with the U.S. and Japanese delegates to the six-party talks held in Seoul late in May though it had nothing to do with the nuclear issue and agreed to use the matter as a "new subject for pressing the north." They are making desperate efforts to achieve their sinister aim by instigating the U.S. and other hostile forces and international bodies.
    The statement branded the racket as an unpardonable challenge to defame the dignity and image of the DPRK and intolerable insult to the overseas workers devoting themselves to the building of a thriving nation.
    It is the height of shamelessness for Park Geun Hye, descendant of the notorious "yusin" dictator, and her group to vociferate about the human rights of the overseas workers of the DPRK, the statement noted, and went on:
    Their anti-DPRK "human rights" racket is nothing but the desperate efforts of those who are much upset by the DPRK making a dynamic advance, powerfully demonstrating its might before the whole world as a matchless military power and nuclear power for self-defence.
    All the workers of the DPRK will surely smash the sinister anti-DPRK "human rights" racket of the south Korean puppet group, hordes of rare traitors. -0

The Park regime in a predicament

The Park Geun-hye regime, that took power through fraudulent election and has engrossed in fascist dictatorship and treachery, finds itself in a tight corner. 

The south Korean prime minister, a main target of Song Wan-jeong case, resigned his post and current governor of south Gyeongsang Province, who squeezed a hundred million money from Song, is under intensive investigation of the south Korean Prosecution Service.  

The Song case excited illegal fund of the “presidential election” held in 2012.

From October to November in 2012 when the 18th “presidential election” entered the critical stage, the Gyeongnam Business Group headed by Song handed over hundreds of million cash to the election measure committee of the present chief executive. 

In particular, the fact that the note left by Song were listed with names of some persons of the then presidential measure committee presume a colossal amount of money was spent for the “presidential election.”

In this regard, the south Korean mass media asserted the Prosecution Service’s investigation should focus on illegal fun of the “presidential election” of the present chief executive.

As the 18^th “presidential election” was branded as a fraudulent election, if the fund of the “presidential election” is made public by the Song’s case, the result would lead to a complete destruction of the present regime. 

The ruling Saenuri Party set up illegal offices for the “presidential election” in 2012 at 12 officetel to launch illegal SNS activities and make fund, a south Korean Sisa Journal exposed on May 10. 

In this connection, the opposition parties including the Alliance for New Politics and Democracy and various circles urged the Blue House and the ruling Saenuri Party to accept the special investigation, denouncing it is unimaginable large-scale illegal act.

Now the south Korean public sentiment commented the Song Wan-jeong case would be the worst crisis insoluble for the Park regime.

The south Korean people are crying for the resignation of the present conservative ruling quarters.

S. Korean Workers Commit Suicides

    Pyongyang, May 19 (KCNA) -- Nowadays workers, unable to bear sufferings due to crackdown on trade unions, discrimination against part-timers and layoff, are committing suicides one after another in south Korea.
    The chief of a branch of the Kwangju-South Jolla Provincial Chapter of the Metal Workers Trade Union hung himself to death on a hillock near his house on May 10.
    In his note he asked his co-workers to fight to the bitter end to have the discharged workers reinstated and part-time jobs turned into full-time ones and put an end to the firing of workers.
    The former chief of a branch of the Kyonggi Provincial Chapter of the Metal Workers Trade Union also hung himself to death in a mountain on May 11.
    Earlier a worker of a Pusan joint brewage company committed suicide in his house on May 7. -0

Spokesman for GFTUK Central Committee Denounces S. Korean Puppet Group's Human Rights Abuses

 Pyongyang, May 8 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Central Committee of the General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea Friday issued a statement denouncing the south Korean puppet group for its brutal crackdown upon workers' large-scale rallies and demonstrations.
    The statement went on:
    The puppet group of gangsters cruelly beat workers and arrested them, far from congratulating them on May Day, stunning the world people.
    The GFTUK Central Committee brands its fascist crackdown as heinous human rights abuses and unpardonable challenge to justice and democracy and vehemently denounces them on behalf of all workers in the northern half of Korea.
    The puppet regime has turned south Korea into a veritable hell and a tundra of human rights. It is, therefore, the height of impudence for it to pull up the DPRK over its "human rights issue."
    The recent May Day rallies were a clear manifestation of the pent-up grudge and resentment of the people from all walks of life including workers at the authorities' unbearable unpopular rule.
    With neither high-handed actions nor suppression can the south Korean regime arrest the just struggles of the workers to have their vital rights guaranteed.
    If the regime continues resorting to fascist crackdown upon the just actions of people from all walks of life, refusing to face up to the mind-set of the angry public and the trend of the times, it will surely meet its doom.
    All workers in the northern half of Korea will positively support the workers and other people of south Korea in their just actions for democratic freedom and the right to existence against the unpopular policies and fascist rule of the regime. -0-

Action for Genuine Life

Action for Genuine Life

Large-scale anti-"government" actions of labor circle were staged in south Korea on May Day, marking the 125^th anniversary.

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions held a rally on May 1 at Seoul Square putting up slogan "End to Park Geun-hye".

It was attended by at least 50 000 workers under the confederation and more than 200 bereaved family members of the ferry Sewol disaster.

Speakers at the meeting said that the workers get the minimum standard cost of living and suffer all kinds of grinding toil in poor working condition.

Han Sang-gyun, chairman of the confederation, declared it would fight to put an end to the Park corrupt regime, not yielding to any threat.

He stressed they would continue the general strike in May and June.

At the end of the rally the participants staged demonstrations.

The south Korean riot police barricaded the road with their vehicles, sprayed tear gas and water on the demonstrators and took many people to the police station.

Meanwhile, there took place a rally in Youido, Seoul denouncing the puppet authorities for retrogressively revising the structure of labor market with at least 120 000 workers under the Federation of Trade Unions attending.

Speakers deplored that the reality of south Korea is becoming more disastrous and miserable owing to unemployment and financial crisis during two-year-long Park regime’s rule and there is neither hope nor future.

They said that they would stop the authorities’ move to retrogressively revise the structure of labor market through the June general strike.

That day members of the Government Employees Union staged a strike in Seoul in protest against the Park group's moves to retrogressively revise pension for government employees.

KCTU's General Strike Supported by S. Koreans

    Pyongyang, April 25 (KCNA) -- At least 1 000 civic and public organizations of south Korea held a press conference in Seoul on April 21 in support of the April 24 general strike of the south Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU).
    The secretary general of the Citizens Solidarity for Democratic Society said that the guarantee of basic labor right, increase of public pension, drastic increase of the minimum wage, probe into truth about the ferry Sewol disaster and abolition of the "regime's enforcement ordinance" demanded by the KCTU are all just calls.
    The director of the Unification Study Center branded the Park Geun Hye regime as "the regime infected with diseases" making the society rotten, adding the KCTU's general strike is one to topple the rotten Park regime.
    The permanent co-representative of the Strength of the People said that the regime defined the strike as "illegal one" and is planning wholesale suppression of it. Lurking behind this is an attempt to conceal the truth about the power-backed fraudulent election and the scandal disclosed by the Song Wan Jong case, he added.
    The chairman of the Federation of Distribution Traders said that majority of self-supporting businessmen are those who suffered losses due to capital and the regime, positively supporting the strike of the KCTU.
    The chairman of the Federation of Peasants Associations and the co-representative of the Solidarity for Liberation of the Poor accused the regime of regarding the workers as slaves, declaring peasants and the poor would join the KCTU in its general strike.
    The chairman of the South Headquarters of the Pan-national Alliance for Korea's Reunification called upon the KCTU to take the lead in the strike and peasants, urban poor, common people and all other people to get united to drive the Park regime into a cesspool.
    The chairman of the KCTU called for positive actions to save workers and other common people. -0-