Help win justice for Ssangyong Motor workers!

Mr. President and Honorable Speaker:

In 2009 the South Korean government shocked the international community by its use of lethal force against the Ssangyong Motor workers during the 77-day sit-down strike calling for negotiations on work-sharing measures to avoid mass dismissals.

Water, electricity and access to food and medicine were cut off as riot police and private security forces surrounded the plant. Riot police forces attacked the striking workers with electroshock weapons and police helicopters dropped corrosive chemical agents on the striking workers, while blocking access to water to clean chemical burns and to drink.

It is an outrage to discover the mass dismissals may have been illegal in the first place.

New reports show Ssangyong Motor appears to have doctored its accounts to inflate its debt ratio of 187 percent into 561 percent. The company’s claims of urgent business exigencies to justify the mass dismissal of 2,646 workers were apparently based on dishonest claims, if not business fraud.

Three years later, none of the dismissed workers have been reinstated. None of the workers placed on unpaid leave have been recalled.

The Ssangyong Motor workers and their families affected by the mass dismissals suffer extreme financial duress, provisional seizure of workers’ homes and bank accounts to pay the employer and its insurance company for strike “damages,” and blacklisting from future employment. This has led to 22 deaths by suicide and sudden malady.

The responsibility of the government is clear -- and the need for a resolution urgent -- before a 23rd victim is taken. South Korea may grow as an economic power; however, it is unlikely to earn global respect without demonstrating it can deal with human and labor rights issues. Thus, we urge the South Korean government to:

-- Carry out a full parliamentary investigation into state affairs to bring to light the truth regarding the Ssangyong Motor falsification of accounts and mass dismissals.
-- Apologize for the use of state violence during the 77-day strike in 2009 and punish those responsible.
-- Apologize for the 22 deaths and reinstate all the dismissed Ssangyong Motor workers.
-- Stop labor repression, such as the damages claims suits and provisional seizure of workers assets and other judicial harassment against the Ssangyong Motor workers who exercised the right of strike.