KOGAS Branch of the KPTU Strike News 1

Holding a press conference and a rally
And staging a warning strike on 2^nd December, Monday

At 11:00, 2^nd December, Monday, KOGAS Branch of the KPTU (Korean Federation of Public Services and Transportation Workers’ Unions) held a press conference in front of the National Assembly, Seoul, Korea, to announce its plans to go on strike if the proposed amendment of the Urban Gas Business Act (UBGA), submitted by the ruling party, Saenuridang, were to pass in the National Assembly.

KOGAS, an abbreviation of Korea Gas Corporation, is a public enterprise, whose main lines of business include the production and distribution of natural gas including the purification and sales of by-products, the exploration and import/export of natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG), the construction and operation of LNG terminals and natural gas distribution network, and the research and development for related business areas.

The revised bill of the UBGA, part of the privatization drive of public sector under the current Park Geun-Hye government, is going to allow private companies to directly import and sell natural gas in the domestic market and is thus widely criticized for its threatening potential to cause the huge increase of household gas prices and give rise to instability in gas supply at the national level.

During the press conference, Jong-Hoon Lee, President of KOGAS Branch of the KPTU, announced, “We are going to make every effort, including strike, to repeal the revised bill of the UBGA and to achieve real wages increase.” and added, “If the revised bill were to pass in the Bill Examination Subcommittee of the National Assembly, we will immediately go on strike.”

Following Jong-Hoon Lee, Sang-Moo Lee, President of the KPTU, spoke, “the KPTU will, together with its members and affiliates, join forces with civil society organizations to stop the revised bill of the UBGA.”

After the press conference, at 14:00 on the same day, KOGAS Branch of the KPTU held a rally a few hundred meters away from the National Assembly to demand the strengthening of the public nature of gas and the repeal of the revised bill of the UBGA, and staged a 5-hour warning strike, in which 1,000 or so of its 2,800 members participated.