S Korean workers rally against free trade pact

Thousands of South Korean workers rallied Thursday against a planned free trade pact with the United States and the pro-market policies of new President Lee Myung-Bak.


SEOUL (AFP) — Thousands of South Korean workers rallied Thursday against a planned free trade pact with the United States and the pro-market policies of new President Lee Myung-Bak.

An estimated 5,000 unionists gathered in central Seoul for a May Day rally sponsored by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), a militant umbrella labour group.

They denounced a deal struck last month to further open South Korea to US beef imports and demanded that the US-South Korea free trade agreement (FTA) be scrapped.

US legislators had warned they would not pass the free trade pact until the beef trade was freed up. US congressional ratification of the trade deal is still uncertain.

"No American beef. No to FTA!" the workers shouted, waving banners and chanting slogans.

They also called for an end to discrimination against so-called temporary workers, who do not receive the same benefits as full-time employees.

Many companies hire workers on this basis to get around strict labour legislation which makes redundancies difficult.

http://bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=11994

The temp workers program is just a sneaky way to bring slavery back. Which is why we don't want it here!!!!!!!!!!!