Ssangyong Motor shuns ex-workers

By Jung Min-ho

A recent Supreme Court ruling that Ssangyong Motor’s massive layoff in 2009 was within the law, was painful for some 150 former workers, who are still fighting in miserable conditions to return to the company.

One of the laid-off workers, surnamed Park, the father of two daughters, died of liver cancer Saturday. Over the past five years, a total of 26 laid-off Ssangyong Motor workers and their family members have died, some by suicide and others from disease.

Two former Ssangyong workers have been protesting atop a 70-meter chimney at the company’s plant in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, in icy-cold weather since Saturday, demanding reinstatement.

The laid-off workers are calling for leniency from Anand Mahindra, chairman of the Mahindra Group, the largest shareholder of the automaker. The chairman is being urged by the workers to tackle the labor issue when he visits Korea next month.

After getting a job at Ssangyong in 1996, Park worked until the company fired 2,146 of its 7,135 employees in 2009 due to financial difficulties, which the former employees claim was just an excuse for the job cuts.

While seeking compensation for a lumbar herniated disc that he got on duty, he moved from one precarious job to another, a group of the laid-off workers said.

“Another colleague passed away,” the group said. “How we feel about his death is beyond description. After years of hard work, what he got was a layoff notice.”

The workers who are protesting atop the chimney say they feel like they are “standing on the edge of the cliff.”

“Our request has repeatedly been rejected and we felt like there was nowhere else to go,” they said in a statement. “After the government, the National Assembly and court turned their back on us, our colleagues are the only ones that we can depend on.”

They say they will not come down until management agrees to reinstate the laid-off workers.

Actor Kim Eiu-sung also staged a one-man demonstration Monday at Gwanghwamun square, central Seoul, in support of their protest.

He held a placard that read, “Two men went up to the chimney amid the icy wind. Please let them get back to work.”

Meanwhile, Ssangyong said the company would respond to their illegal protest sternly.

“They must stop the protest, which won’t help solve the problem,” the company said in a statement. “We won’t negotiate and will take any legal action necessary.”

The company added the issue of their reinstatement could be resolved as its management condition improves.