Samsung Workers in Mexico on Hunger Strike: Call for International Solidarity

Four female workers, unfairly fired and victims of workplace abuse, have caged themselves and sewn their lips shut as they launch a hunger strike and one threatens to burn herself alive in a dramatic protest against the multinational corporation Samsung. Read the original in Spanish here

UNHEARD-OF VIOLATION OF THE LABOUR AND HUMAN RIGHTS OF WORKERS OF THE KOREAN BUSINESS

WE MUST PREVENT THIS RIGHTFUL PROTEST BECOMING A TRAGEDY

Four female workers, unfairly fired and victims of workplace abuse, have caged themselves and sewn their lips shut as they launch a hunger strike and threatens to burn herself alive in a dramatic protest against the multinational corporation Samsung,funded by Korean capital which is currently constructing a plant for the extraction of natural gas in the Mexican port of Manzanillo, in the state of Colima.

Madaí Díaz Rodríguez, Sandra Gómez, Lourdes Zamora y Elvira Orozco worked in the kitchen of the Ingeniería Civil construction company, subcontracted by the multinational and whilst working were victims of constant abuse and mistreatment which escalated to daily verbal and physical violence from their Korean bosses and foremen. To these facts there can also be added multiple instances of arbitrary treatment and labour abuses such as the imposition of 12-hour days, with no pay for the extra hours which were their legal right. This situation is a daily reality for the hundreds of workers who lend their services to the aforementioned company.

Solidarity Letter to Anti-POSCO Movement from a Korean Prison

While Indian State has unleashed State terror again since yesterday on Anti-POSCO protesters, South Korean activist SUNG-HEE CHOI, in prison for opposing a naval base off Jeju Island, sends a powerful letter in solidarity with the people of Orissa opposing the POSCO project.

Dear residents in Jagatsinghpur,

I am a woman and activist living in South Korea, the country of the POSCO you oppose. I am currently being jailed in the Jeju prison, under the charge of ‘interruption of business’, because of my resistance against the enforcement of the naval base construction in the Jeju Island located in the south of South Korea. As of today, July 3, I met 46th day since my arrest and 44th day since my being restrained.

I accidently happened to see two of your struggle photos and a photo in the Korean Times, June 13, 2011 had a caption underneath it:

‘Anti POSCO action in India: A village sprays water to relieve children lying with other villages along the entry point to prevent policemen and officials from entering their area at Jagatsinghpur district, about 140 kilometers(87 miles) east of eastern Bhubareshwary India, Saturday. The villagers have been protesting against turning their farmland into an industrial developed area for a $12 billion steal plant of South Korean conglomerate POSCO (AP-Yonhap).’

The situation of the Gangjeong village, Jeju Island, when I, along with many others, wanted to prevent naval base, is very much like yours. The Gangjeong villages who have fought for four years to save their village are keeping vigil day and night against sudden crackdown by the navy and construction companies (Samsung and Daerim etc.). It is for not being robbed of their lands. If trucks come, they block them with their bodies and if ships come, they resist them by swimming to them.