Korean Metal Workers’ Union solidarity to the Polish Opel workers in the 2007 wage struggle

We support your just struggle to better the lives of your union members and contribute to a strong Polish workers’ movement and a better life for the workers of Poland. Your struggle represents not only the fight of the workers at Opel, in the Katowice SSE Special Economic Zone, and the private sector of Poland, but all the workers throughout the world who are struggling to uphold workers’ dignity and rights in this era of neoliberalism.

We are deeply concerned to hear about the management tactic (during wage bargaining) of threatening to relocate production from the Gliwice Opel plant to Russia or Ukraine. Clearly they are putting enormous pressures on workers in the course of wage negotiations to get the upper hand in negotiations and squeeze more out of the workers, who are creating their wealth.
Neoliberal economic integration and free trade agreements have led to competition conditions that squeeze the workers and farmers while making the transnationals wealthy, but also give the transnationals excessive rights and reduced obligation to face their responsibilities in any given country. It is crucial for workers to remain united in the face of the high pressures and threats that emerge in this era of rampant neoliberal globalization and we wholeheartedly support your fight.

In South Korea, we remember that accession to the OECD for Poland (22 November 1996) was just one month before South Korea’s accession to the OECD (12 December 1996). We strongly suspect that these actions by the Opel violate even the guidelines adopted by the OECD (OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises). Article 7 of chapter IV of the guidelines state that enterprises should “in the context of bona fide negotiations with representatives of employees on conditions of employment, or while employees are exercising a right to organise, not threaten to transfer the whole or part of an operating unit from the country concerned nor transfer employees from the enterprises’ component entities in other countries in order to influence unfairly those negotiations or to hinder the exercise of a right to organize.”

Furthermore, we cannot help but be outraged by the management’s insincere bargaining attitude of trying to break an impasse by coming back with an even lower offer in wage negotiations from 500 PLN to 350 PLN. It is also quite disappointing to hear that the management is trying to get away with only increasing bonuses instead of properly increasing the basic wage despite their own promises that wages would be substantially increased for 2008.

The unity and solidarity of the workers -- at Opel, in the region and internationally – is the most important weapon of the workers in the face of the transnationals that bully and intimidate the workers. And we understand it is a struggle to see the human spirit, the spirit of solidarity, prevail. We wish the Polish Opel workers a strong victory in the 2007 struggle for a wage increase.

In Solidarity,

JUNG, Gap-Deuk
President
Korean Metal Workers’ Union