Joint Response by Five Opposition Parties to 'Hanjin Heavy Industries Situation' Must Bear Fruit

The heads of the five opposition parties met yesterday and agreed to form a policy negotiating committee. The party heads agreed to discuss all pending labor issues, including a resolution to the Hanjin Heavy Industries situation and expanding the basic political rights of teachers and civil servants.It is also said that aside from the official agreement, they also discussed a joint general lawmakers' meeting and the convening of the Hope Rally, scheduled for Aug 20~21.In the first meeting since Sohn Hak-kyu assumed control of the Democratic Party, a concrete agreement was produced.When one considers that Kim Jin-suk, a Direction Committee member at the Busan office of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), who has been conducting a sit-down strike atop a crane in Busan for over 200 days, it feels a bit late, but as political efforts to resolve the situation have kicked into high gear, the development is worth welcoming.The joint-response by the five opposition parties signifies that the opposition has raised the anchor of cooperation regarding labor issues.The Hanjin Heavy Industries issue comes off as a sudden mass layoff by a particular company citing business reasons, but it has general implications for resolving all labor issues that have been exposed to excessive market omnipotence under this government.The keys are substantive reductions in the numbers of irregular workers and easing discrimination, preventing the overuse of mass layoffs, making minimum wages a reality, and substantively guaranteeing the Three Labor Rights.We think the five opposition parties' decision to go beyond the Hanjin Heavy Industries issue to search for ways to craft alternative legislation, such as amending the Labor Standards Act, is an expression that they sense this problem.If the horizon of the opposition alliance over labor policy can broaden thanks to the Hanjin Heavy Industries issue, it could turn misfortune into a blessing.Going further, the significance of the agreement is doubled in that it is an attempt by which we can substantively ascertain the possibility of a union or alliance, as is currently being pushed by the opposition.It is true that the discussions about an opposition union or alliance have remained at calculations of political pluses and minuses for victory in next year's general election of administration change.That the reform and progressive camp's "Hope 2013, Victory 2012 Roundtable Conference" warned not long ago that if the opposition cannot show a vision for a new world they'll create after 2013, discussions of an opposition union or alliance would be meaningless, indicates a lot.Regardless of the political significance, however, the joint response by the five opposition parties to the Hanjin Heavy Industries situation is being keenly watched in that it pressures the government and ruling party to take active efforts to resolve the situation.The Hanjin Heavy Industries situation, symbolized by Kim Jin-suk's strike atop the crane and the Hope Buses, is a test bed to ascertain trends in public opinion regarding henceforth labor policy.As the opposition has agreed to respond jointly, the government, ruling party and Hanjin need to realize the severity of the situation and lend an ear to the protesters with sincerity.Even within the government and ruling party, there has been for some time criticism of the behavior of Hanjin Heavy Industries chairman Cho Nam-ho.Now the government and ruling party must act. If not, the Hanjin Heavy Industries situation could, as time passes, race towards a dead-end situation in which a resolution would be difficult to find. (Editorial, The Kyunghyang Daily News. Aug 04, 2011)

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