A spring, when pressed hard, will only bounce back stronger. It is still fresh in our memories that major industrial sites often resembled battle fields as a result of violent clashes between unionized workers and police. The radical image of Korean labor unions was cited as a major reason for business corporations here to build factories in China or other developing countries to avoid the violent labor disputes. In addition, the image of violent unions also scared off foreign investors who intended to conduct business here. The national economy is in difficulty.
Some analysts view the situation as the start of another economic crisis.
However, worrisome is the reported suspicion that the breakthrough was made possible through a secret agreement promising a whopping increase of workers' salaries. Suspicions of secret agreements were also raised in the negotiations for the restructuring of other state firms. Ginseng Corp. To make a secret agreement with labor unions is an act of cheating the people. We fully understand the difficulties in persuading the workers. But, what the government should know is that to strike a secret deal in order to extort an agreement will only earn the distrust of the people and make it impossible to achieve the desired labor-management relationship in the long run.