On Nov. 2, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) will host the National Workers’ Rally to carry on the spirit of martyr Jeon Tae-il, a dedicated South Korean sewing worker and labor rights activist who tragically took his life at just 22, a protest against deplorable working conditions in South Korea’s factories. This year, the rally will focus on the call for President Yoon Suk-yeol’s resignation.
Statement from the KCTU:
The Yoon Suk-yeol regime: We cannot wait a day, let alone three years.
The war crisis on the Korean Peninsula has reached its peak.
The use of loudspeakers and propaganda leaflets against North Korea led to the Yeoncheon artillery incident in 2015 and the destruction of the inter-Korean liaison office in 2020. Despite repeated strong warnings from North Korea, the Yoon regime continues its warmongering, pushing the nation’s fate to the brink of disaster.
It has been revealed that the South Korean Ministry of National Defense flew drones over Pyongyang, a serious violation of the armistice agreement that could escalate into a full-scale war between the North and South.
The U.S. military in South Korea, as a party to the armistice and the holder of operational control, bears direct responsibility for this provocation. Already, eight artillery brigades of the Korean People’s Army have entered a state of combat readiness along the border.
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) spread fake news about North Korea sending troops to Russia, which even the U.S. and NATO said they could not confirm. Nevertheless, Yoon Suk-yeol is deceiving the public with this fake news, seemingly preparing to send artillery shells and the Cheongung-2 missile unit to Ukraine. Yoon is positioning South Korea as an enemy of Russia, aiming to turn the country into a battlefield of destruction and death.
By offering land for the THAAD deployment, South Korea has already been reduced to a forward base, protecting the U.S. and Japan from Chinese ballistic missiles. Soaring prices, shrinking wages, and public suffering — Yoon Suk-yeol, upon taking office, immediately focused on raising taxes on the common people and cutting taxes for the rich.
With his push for a 69-hour workweek and labor flexibility, he has brutally violated workers’ rights to survive. He has labeled the construction workers’ union as a violent group, imprisoning and repressing them. By branding unions as criminal and corrupt organizations and even as anti-state groups, he is fueling hatred against unions and is obsessed with wiping them out.
Yoon has vetoed 24 labor and public welfare bills while pushing through a decision to clear his wife, Kim Keon-hee, of stock manipulation charges. He is driving the public to the brink of survival, and to escape his political crisis, he is plunging the nation into a deadly war crisis. To save workers, Yoon Suk-yeol must be defeated; to save the people, Yoon must be overthrown.
Recently, U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called South Korea an ATM, boasting that if he were president, he would demand $10 billion a year. South Korea remains subordinated to the U.S., being extorted and mocked by the U.S. military, and now facing the outbreak of war. The path to overcoming this national crisis is clear: Yoon Suk-yeol, the puppet of the U.S., must be brought down, and the U.S. must be expelled.
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