South Korea: Public sector unions face Government oppression‏

The Public Services International (PSI) is reporting a crackdown on public service unions by the South Korean Government and is calling on affiliates and the wider trade union movement to send letters of protest to the South Korean Government as well as to the South Korean Embassy.

PSI says that since coming into power in February 2008, the Government of Lee Myung-Bak has pursued an agenda of downsizing the public sector and outsourcing public services. This has been marked by a sustained attack on the rights of public sector workers to organise and bargain collectively, including the unilateral suspension or cancellation of collective bargaining agreements.. The Government is also proceeding with the implementation of laws that have been long dormant on the statute books, which would ban employers from paying full time union officials and force a single bargaining channel at enterprise level.
http://www.world-psi.org/TemplateEn.cfm?Section=Winning_workers_rights&CONTENTID=24094&TEMPLATE=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm

Earlier this month TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber wrote to the South Korean Ambassador to the UK, expressing concern about the Korean Government's attempt to ban employers from paying wages to trade union officials and restrict the right to collective bargaining.
http://www.tuc.org.uk/international/tuc-17343-f0.cfm