Kim told the outlet that high diesel prices have left him earning far less than he did last year-about three million won ($2,300) per month-and his wife, who is past retirement age, has had to take on cleaning and cooking jobs to help make ends meet. "Our money is stretched to eat and live for a month. We are loyal to our country, because we are contributing to exports," Kim Young-chan, a 63-year-old container truck driver, told Reuters on Monday. Meanwhile, Yoon has said he will not meet the truckers' so-called "unjustified demands," while administration officials have derided the workers as a "labor aristocracy." On Monday, Yoon made clear that he is siding with industry groups including the Korea International Trade Association (KITA), the Korea Shipping Association (KSA), and the Korea International Freight Forwarders Association (KIFFA), which have claimed the safe minimum rate introduced in 2020 has made logistics too expensive for shipping and freight companies and have complained that the truckers are harming their ability to comply with delivery deadlines and threaten to disrupt the supply of fuel. The union condemned the start-work order as "martial law that opens the door for dictatorship." The Cargo Truckers Solidarity Union (CTSU) vowed to take legal action against the government. Last week Yoon issued an executive order demanding that cement truck drivers return to work, threatening them with up to three years in jail or fines of up to 30 million won ($22,400).ĭespite the threats, truckers across the country defied the order last week, symbolically shaving their heads as they continued the strike. The STFRS had been set to expire at the end of 2022, but truckers forced the government to extend it until the end of 2025 with an eight-day work stoppage in June. "Maybe our life can be better if freight rates are stable." Truck drivers in South Korea have been on strike for nearly two weeks, demanding a permanent adoption of the country's Safe Trucking Freight Rates System (STFRS)-a minimum rate introduced in 2020 that truckers say has allowed them to make a living without increasing their workloads and driving unsafely in order to make a certain number of deliveries. An order by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for thousands of truckers to end their strike last week drew comparisons to a "dictatorship," but Yoon on Monday was preparing to expand the order to truck drivers in the petroleum and steel industries, ignoring their calls for fair pay.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |