By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
The Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union (KTU) filed a compensation suit Wednesday against Rep. Cho Jeon-hyeok of the governing Grand National Party for disclosing a list of progressive union members.
It also sued the DongA Ilbo for printing the list of the union members.
In the suit, it demanded Cho and the newspaper pay a total of 1.2 billion won ($ 1 million)in compensation. A group of 5,864 teachers form the collective plaintiff.
The action came one day after a court ruled that Cho should discontinue the disclosure of the names and otherwise pay 30 million won ($27,000) per day in compensation to the Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union (KTU).
Earlier, the Seoul Southern District Court disallowed the lawmaker to unveil names of unionized teachers to the public, but Rep. Cho last week published the names of more than 60,000 of the KTU membership teachers on his Web site, defying the court’s decision.
In response, KTU members requested the court to stop Rep. Cho, as he blatantly disobeyed the court’s injunction and the court accepted the appeal.
“Rep. Cho should not have disclosed the list of the KTU membership teachers on the Internet or to the press, according to the court’s decision April 15, which banned this. If Rep. Cho disobeys the ruling, he should pay 30 million won a day to the KTU,” the court said.
However, Cho and some other GNPmembers stood firm against the decision, claiming that the ruling seriously infringes upon the political activities of lawmakers, and that the court doesn’t have the right to remove the names of KTU members from his Web site.
“Cho is able to appeal to the decision, but he has to pay 30 million won until a higher court reverses the decision,” a court official said.
Cho has also disclosed a list of the names of those belonging to the conservative Korea Federation of Teachers’ Association (KFTA), claiming that parents have a right to know the political inclination of their children’s teachers.
However both conservative and progressive teachers are currently opposing the provision of teachers’ names according to their membership groups.
They voice concerns that it would cause conflicts among teachers, students and parents.