Workers blockade factory for months
Over 1,000 unionists began a strike on 23 June. By late August they were still picketing their employer, Kolon Industries main factory in Gumi, a textile manufacturing plant.

Police set up road blocks to stop other workers going to support the blockade.

The workers wanted more pay and demanded that Kolon scrap plans for ‘restructuring’, a worldwide corporate pseudonym that really means ‘redundancies’.

Kolon has undertaken union busting techniques, including sacking a union official and filed criminal accusations against 12 workers. A further 15 activists will be dealt with for breaches of discipline.

The company, like many others around the world, profess a monopoly on industrial action, calling the strikers actions ‘illegal’ on the grounds that they interfere with management; managers around the world demand the ‘right to manage’ without taking workers’ rights, enshrined in the United Nations’ International Labour Organisation’s conventions, into account.
World Socialist Web Site, 21 August 2004