SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s government issued an order Tuesday for some of the thousands of truck drivers who have been on strike to return to work, insisting that their nationwide walkout over freight fare issues is hurting an already weak economy.
Despite facing the threat of delicensing or even prison terms, the strike’s organizers said they would defy the order and accused President Yoon Suk Yeol’s conservative government of suppressing their labor rights and ignoring what they described as worsening work conditions and financial strain caused by rising fuel costs and interest rates.
The order was approved in a Cabinet meeting called by Yoon and targeted about 2,500 drivers of cement trucks among a broader group of truckers participating in the walkout. It marked the first time a South Korean government has exercised controversial powers under a law revised in 2004 to force truckers back to their jobs.
A failure to comply without “justifiable reason” is punishable by up to three years in jail or a maximum fine of 30 million won ($22,400). Critics have denounced the law as unconstitutional, saying it doesn’t clearly define what qualifies as acceptable conditions for a strike.
The strike’s damage so far has been largely limited to domestic industries such as construction and there have been no reports of substantial disruptions of key exports such as computer chips and automobiles.
Yoon said the truckers’ strike is threatening to “devastate the foundation of our industries,” citing delays in deliveries of materials such as cement and steel to construction sites and factories. He accused the strikers of illicit activities such as disrupting the work of colleagues who have refused to participate in the strike.
“There’s no way to justify the act of taking the lives of people and the national economy as hostage to accomplish their own interest,” Yoon said in the Cabinet meeting.
Officials said the “work start order” was issued to cement truckers first because the construction industry has been hit hardest by the strike. Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho said in a briefing Tuesday that cement shipments have been reduced by more than 90% since the start of the strike and about half of the country’s construction sites have experienced disruptions.
Thousands of members of the Cargo Truckers Solidarity union have been striking since last Thursday, in their second nationwide walkout since June, calling for the government to make permanent a minimum freight rate system that is to expire at the end of 2022.