Labor groups boycott S Korea-US FTA deal
Yonhap | 2007/04/02
Labor groups boycott S. Korea-U.S. FTA deal
SEOUL, April 2 (Yonhap) — Labor groups here on Monday voiced their strong opposition to the just-reached deal between South Korea and the United States to effectively dismantle their tariff barriers.
The groups vowed to launch a campaign to nullify the free trade agreement deal (FTA) and even threatened to attempt to oust President Roh Moo-hyun.
"The back-door deal is not valid as it has been reached with the people ignored and democracy betrayed," said a group that calls itself a "pan-national movement" to block the South Korea-U.S. FTA.
The Democratic Labor Party (DLP), a progressive minority political party, also said Monday’s deal, hailed by conservatives as Seoul’s major globalization-oriented agreement, deserves no respect.
The party linked the agreement with a shameful deal between South Korea and Japan in the early 1900s for annexation.
"We will start a campaign to disobey the agreement and urge the government to hold a referendum on the issue," the DLP leader Moon Sung-hyun said in a statement issued in front of the presidential office in Seoul.
The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions also accused the FTA of heralding a gloomy future for farmer and workers here.
"It will benefit a handful of conglomerates only, while pushing workers and the grassroots into the abyss of poverty and agony," the umbrella labor group said.
