calendar>>November 16 2012 Juch 101
GFTUK Supports S. Korean Workers' Just Struggle
Pyongyang, November 16 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Central Committee of the General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea (GFTUK) Thursday made public the following statement:

Recently workers of south Korea are staging fierce mass actions against the unpopular rule of the conservative regime.

The south Korean Confederation of Trade Unions held a meeting with tens of thousands of workers attending in Seoul on November 11 to declare that it would stage actions for employment, settlement of part-time job and guarantee of basic labor rights and have their demands met by punishing the present regime in the "presidential" election.

They ardently called for turning the upcoming "presidential" election into a theatre of courageous actions for rights of workers to existence and great social reforms and a battle to drive out the "yusin" dictatorship. They expressed their firm will to wage dynamic large-scale anti-regime actions with the election at hand.

On November 9, part-time workers of over 3,440 schools across south Korea staged a general strike in 16 areas. They vowed to escalate the struggle amid popular support and solidarity unless their demands are met.

The strong mass actions of workers now mounting in different parts of south Korea are an eruption of the pent-up grudge and anger at the unpopular rule and labor policy of the conservative group including traitor Lee Myung Bak and a demonstration of the will to make a clean sweep of the group of traitors and bring about new independent and democratic politics and society where genuine life is guaranteed.

During the past five years of the Lee Myung Bak regime the economy and people's living in south Korea went bankrupt and workers and other people there are subject to unbearable misfortunes and sufferings.

Even according to information made public by the puppet regime, during Lee's office job chances further dwindled as compared with those in the period of the former regime and the number of the unemployed and semi-unemployed reached an all time high in south Korea's history.

The number of the poor who are unable to earn even the lowest living cost increased more than 300,000 every year, reaching at least 9 million at present. The income gap between the rich and the poor is about 18 times that of 2007.

Half of all the families in south Korea do not have their own houses. They live either in rented rooms or in dugouts, underground rooms and caves.

However, the ruling conservatives shun such sufferings of the people and perpetrate scandals for accumulation of wealth and personal glory and are keen to gratify their despicable political ambitions. They even unhesitatingly commit such horrible atrocities as turning down the demands of workers and other people for their rights to existence and cruelly killing them as evidenced by their killing of evacuees of Ryongsan and mass lay-off at Ssangyong Motorcar Co.

That is why south Korean people from all walks of life describe the five years of Lee Myung Bak's office as "five years of misrule" and "era of darkness" as it drove the economy and people's living to collapse and distress and they are ready to punish the group of traitors.

Now the "Saenuri Party" sharing the same lot with Lee Myung Bak more dead than alive, forsaken by the people, is desperately working to mislead the people's attention in a bid to prolong its remaining days and stay in power, ridiculously talking about "people's living", "economic democracy" and "revamp" with the "presidential" election at hand.

But, no one will be taken in its rhetoric.

It is the firm resolution and will of the south Korean people including workers to punish the Lee group of evil and the "Saenuri Party" in the election and overthrow the unjust society where 99 percent of people must serve just one percent of the population.

All the workers of south Korea should bear mind that they can never escape misfortune and disaster as long as such wicked gang of traitors as the Lee group and the "Saenuri Party" are allowed to go reckless. They should become standard-bearers and vanguard in the actions against Lee Myung Bak and the "Saenuri Party" and severely punish the conservative group.

The GFTUK Central Committee sends full support and solidarity to the south Korean workers in their just and brave actions to win back independent rights of human beings and build a genuine new society.

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