Vol. 77/No. 47      December 30, 2013

Some 150 cops raided the offices of the Korean Railway Workers’ Union in Seoul Dec. 17, seizing computers and documents. The government has issued arrest warrants for 10 union officials, on the grounds that the strike is illegal. And the company has suspended more than 7,600 workers.

The strike began Dec. 9 after KORAIL refused to negotiate over plans to set up a subsidiary to run a planned high-speed passenger train between Seoul and Busan. The Railway Workers’ Union sees this as a step toward privatization, cutting jobs and wages.

KORAIL denies this is privatization, stating that shares in the new company would be government owned. The Korea Herald — which says the government “is right to play hardball with the union” — reports that the move is designed “to make the rail operator more efficient through competition … and reduce KORAIL’s snowballing debt, which reached 17.6 trillion won [$952 million] in June.”

“In most countries rail privatization begins this same way,” Wol-san Liem, international affairs director for the Korean Federation of Public Services and Transportation Workers’ Union, said by phone from Seoul Dec. 17. “Then they will slash costs wherever they can and this will have an impact on safety, on repairs and maintenance.”

By the third day of the strike almost two-thirds of freight train traffic was shut down as well as many passenger and subway lines.

“KORAIL has brought in students, retired workers, managers and some soldiers to work as scabs,” Liem said. “Many are not adequately trained.”

On Dec. 15 an 84-year-old subway passenger died after she was caught in subway doors, operated by a strikebreaker.

The attack on rail workers is one of a series of attacks on unions and political rights since President Park Geun-hye was elected last year.

Four Unified Progressive Party officials were charged in recent months with violating the National Security Law, for supposedly acting as agents of North Korea.

“They’ve made similar charges against some rail workers who are accused of being members of a secret organization,” Liem said.

Rail unions affiliated with the International Transport Workers’ Federation in at least 15 countries, from Australia to Bulgaria, protested at South Korean embassies Dec. 9 and 10 in solidarity with the strike.

More then 10,000 rail workers and supporters protested in Seoul Dec. 14.

“Privatization is going on around the world, especially in Europe where workers are trying to protect public rail,” Liem said. “We hope our struggle will contribute to building the global effort.”

Information on the strike and how to send messages of solidarity is available at http://www.labourstartcampaigns.net/show_campaign.cgi?c=2072 .

— Seth Galinsky

The layoffs are part of conditions for loans to the indebted Greek government Athens agreed to with the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission.

Workers at the National Technical University here ended a 13-week strike over the same issue Dec. 6.

“Out of 1,300 employees at these two campuses in Athens, 500 are to be laid off by decision of the ministry of education. Similar cuts are planned at the other six campuses in the national public university system,” said Christina Demiri, a member of the strike committee.

“The government wants to eliminate job security in the public sector and promote private contractors,” said Demiri. “It also aims to introduce tuition for undergraduates.”

“Preventing public higher education from being dismantled is one of the main aims of the strike,” said Stavroula Vezirtzoglou, an official of the Federation of Higher Education Administrative Personnel.

“With the government proposal, nearly half the personnel would get 350-400 euros ($480-$550) a month for eight months and then be fired.” said Vezirtzoglou. “With unemployment over 27 percent, being fired can mean you’ll never work again.”

“The strike committee has organized regular picketing and assemblies to speak with students and win their support,” said Demiri. The strike suspended classes for some 100,000 students.

“The government tried hard to get students and parents to oppose the strike,” Vezirtzoglou said. But many support the fight “because everyone is faced with the same difficulties to get by.”

In response to government pressure, union officials from the Association of Administrative Employees of the University of Athens declared the strike over Dec. 12. But strikers did not abide by the announcement, which was made after the membership general assembly voted to continue the strike.

On Dec. 13 union members voted again to continue the strike, but to remove picket lines and allow students to resume class. On Dec. 16 “the university will open its doors, but our strike continues,” says Dimitris Antoniou, another strike committee member. “We have not stopped the government’s course, but we have shaken them up.”

— Georges Mehrabian and Natasha Terlexis

More than 1,500 workers joined the strike in three cities the first day, Heiner Reimann, a spokesperson for the Verdi union, which is leading the organizing drive among Amazon’s 9,000 warehouse workers, said in a phone interview from Bad Hersfeld, Germany.

The union is demanding that Amazon, the largest Internet-only retailer in the world, classify its workers as retail employees instead of logistics employees. The latter get paid about 10 euros an hour ($13.80), Reimann said, while those classified as retail get 12 euros ($16.50).

“We have to react to Amazon now,” he added, “because we don’t want the future for workers here to be like in America where everybody has to fight the bosses every day.”

In Germany about 60 percent of workers are covered by union contracts, down from 70 percent 10 years ago, compared to less than 12 percent in the U.S. Both temporary work and so-called minijobs — tax-free part-time jobs with relatively low pay — have been rapidly growing in Germany over the last decade. Today these minijobs account for more than 20 percent of employment.

“The most important issue has to do with dignity,” Amazon worker Christian Kraehling said by phone. “We didn’t have any raises from 2005 to 2011. There was no air conditioning in the warehouses and it got so hot in the summer that a lot of people passed out. The company keeps raising the bar for how much we have to do, and there are problems with the behavior of many managers.”

Once workers started organizing the union, Amazon installed air conditioning, he said, and raised wages a little. But the company still refuses to negotiate with the union.

Some 60 people demonstrated outside Amazon’s Seattle headquarters Dec. 16 to back the strike in Germany, AFL-CIO Field Representative Marcus Courtney told the Militant. “This is about international solidarity,” he said. “This is a fight we have in common.”

— Seth Galinsky