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| Jaeneung Educational Institution (JEI) unionists Yeo Min-hui, left, and Oh Soo-young, wave to colleagues and reporters from the bell tower of Hyehwa Catholic Church at Hyehwa-dong, Seoul, Monday, before climbing down after completing 202 days of their rally on the tower and 2,076 days of the union's sit-in rally. The trade union of JEI ended their six-year-long strike as the tutoring company decided to reinstate all of the fired 11 workers. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
By Kim Jae-won
Unionists of Jaeneung Educational Institution, or JEI, ended their six-year-long rally Monday as the private tutoring company decided to reinstate all of the 11 fired workers and pay them a combined 220 million won ($197,500) in compensation.
Union members of JEI have staged a sit-in rally outside the company's main office in Hyehwa-dong, Seoul, since December 2007, protesting salary cuts and suppression on labor activities. It marked 2,076 days on Monday, the longest rally ever in the nation's labor movement history.
The rally started to draw greater public and media attention in February when the trade union's two female leaders _ Yeo Min-hui and Oh Soo-young _ went up to the bell tower of Hyehwa Catholic Church.
They came down from the tower on Monday afternoon, completing their 202 days of protest on the six square-meter tower.
"We decided to stop the rally because the company agreed to reinstate all of the 11 fired workers and resume the collective agreement which the company canceled in October 2008. We will negotiate with the management to set up a new agreement by the end of this year," said Lee Hyun-sook, a union leader of JEI.
Activists say that JEI unionists established a milestone in the nation's labor movement, raising awareness of poor working conditions of private tutors who visit children's home to teach them.
These workers, called "special employment workers," have not been protected by labor laws because they are classified as "self-employed" by government regulations due to the type of contract they have with their employers. Special employment workers include truck drivers, insurance salespeople and golf caddies as well as employed tutors.
"The rally of JEI unionists was not only for the 11 members of the union, but also for the 100,000 employed tutors and 2.5 million special employment workers," said the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, a progressive umbrella labor organization, in a statement.
However, thanks to the rally of JEI unionists and their legal petition, the Seoul Administrative Court ruled in November that "The union of employed tutors is legitimate by the Labor Union Law and tutors of JEI are workers guaranteed by the law."
The court also ruled JEI's firing of its tutors was illegal.
To abide by the ruling, lawmakers submitted earlier this year bills to revise labor related laws, seeking to protect special employment workers' labor rights.
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