[단독]홍익대 투쟁에 대한 국제적 지지가 조직되다

Solidarity with the Hong Ik University Custodial Workers from the Socialist Alliance in Australia

Dear comrades,

On behalf of the members and supporters of the Socialist Alliance, the largest socialist organisation in Australia, I would like offer our solidarity and support to the defiant workers at the Hong Ik University.

We have been shocked at the callous treatment you have experienced at the hands of the university administration and fully support your right to form a trade union to represent and defend your interests.

Through our press and websites -- Green Left Weekly (http://www.greenleft.org.au) & Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal (http://links.org.au) -- we have learned of your vanguard role in the struggle of South Korea's "irregular" workers for better wages and working conditions, and full trade union rights. We pledge to use those publications to spread the news and build solidarity with your struggle.

Again, on behalf of the socialist and working-class movement in Australia, we offer our strongest support and solidarity to your courageous struggle.

Victory to the Hong Ik University Custodial Workers!

In solidarity,

Terry Townsend,

For the International Relations Committee of the Socialist Alliance of Australia, and editor of Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

I was first saddened and then angered as I read about your working conditions at Hongik University and the response of University officials to your efforts to improve them.Your struggle for unionization is just and I am inspired by your commitment and strength.  I send you greetings of solidarity and hopes for a speedy victory. 

Martin Hart-Landsberg

By the Asia Monitor Resource Centre

http://amrc.01power.net/node/1093

January 21, 2011 -- We join in solidarity with workers and labour groups in South Korea, to strongly condemn the heartless dismissal of 170 cleaning workers as well as security guards from Hong Ik University just after New Year's Day. We strongly applaud the workers for their courage and strength, and will help to make their case known everywhere until justice is reached.

New year’s Day of all days

New Year’s Day is a time for celebration and hope, yet your university has coldly turned out 170 loyal hard-working workers who are in their 40s and 50s, because of their rightful exercise of freedom to associate in a union. In temperature of 17 degrees C below zero at night, the workers have been justly protesting yet the university continues to pretend it has no responsibility. We totally reject the University’s attempt to claim it is not the direct employer, because of the superficial subcontracting relationship.

Union-busting – a job for a university?

We question whether a university is a place that merely employs workers and ‘serves’ clients – their students. A university is not merely a workplace and service provider, and not only a place to reproduce the future educated workforce for other employers, but a place where young people gain the ability to think critically and discern what is valuable and good, fulfil their maximum learning and creative potential, and become contributors to the society’s well-being. It is a place where above all, students should be instilled with the most basic value – respect for human beings.

The University is not only refusing to renew the workers' contract, refusing to recognize the injustice of their low wages, insecure work and right to associate, but has actually threatened these 40 and 50 year old family breadwinners with libel and defamation. By these rude union-busting measures, the university expresses its authoritarian rule, inconsideration for workers that have been contributing humbly to the university environment with their work, and value of money over people. These are not values that a university should reinforce, and this act brings deep shame to Hong Ik University as well as the country.

Exploiting low-wage workers, paying below minimum wage

The workers have been paid below even the minimum wage. This is illegal as well as morally shameful. The daily stipend of 300 won for the cleaners is also ridiculous and shameful, and expresses the total disregard of the university for its workers.

The university shameless is using teaching staff and students to be the strike-breakers, to do the work of the security guard it has dismissed. How far will the university go, to avoid its responsibility and exploit those in need of work?

Subcontracting and dispatch work: worsening work conditions and lives, all across Asia – we say NO

We further strongly express our rejection of employers in South Korea that attempt to use subcontracting and outsourcing and all irregular forms of work as a way to withhold social security, labour rights and basic decent work conditions from their workers. Such unjust legal artifices only contribute to worsening poverty and social disparity, and social conflicts, in South Korea but also all across Asia.

The South Korean government allows employers such as even universities to blatantly deprive workers of their rights to form unions and bargain for their just rights to wages and safe working conditions. In an urban society where lack of wages means lack of livelihood, such policies are creating a situation hardly different from forced labour, when workers are faced with job loss and even lawsuits, for the mere attempts to access their constitution right of association.

SHAME ON HONG IK UNIVERSITY!

Give back the jobs to the 170 cleaning workers! Bring them in from the cold!

Give wage increases to the workers – no more paying below minimum wage!

Respect cleaning workers!

SOLIDARITY TO THE WORKERS:

We support you! We will let others know your case until justice is reached!