The Lonely Protester

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From Busan Haps

For nearly 200 days labor activist, Kim Jin-suk, has has been living high above the Busan shipyard on crane No. 85. It has nothing to do with rising home costs. Kim has turned the crane into a soapbox to demand workers rights and win a reversal of a local shipbuilder’s plan to lay off upwards of 400 employees. Last weekend more than 7,000 joined her in a rally to support the jobs of local workers

BUSAN, South Korea -- Kim Jin-suk, a 51-year-old former welder, has taken up residence in the cab of a shipyard crane protesting labor cuts. She has managed to survive sub-zero temperatures, a recent typhoon, monsoon rains and the increasingly hot humid weather that comes with every Busan summer. And of course, she has no shower and is forced to use a bucket as a toilet.

Kim is a former employee of Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction (HHIC) and has been holed up continuously since January. The company cut off power to the crane but she has managed to stay in contact through her smart phone which is charged by solar powered batteries. Kim has been Tweeting her supporters from her perch high above the shipyard to drum up support. She currently has over 19,000 followers on Twitter.

The growing popularity of Kim’s sit-in has caused HHIC to go on the offensive. This past Tuesday, Kim tweeted that HHIC security guards had begun to deploy a safety net around her crane, which usually indicates a plan to remove her by force.


 

"Every day is a life-and-death battle," she told Reuters by telephone, adding the company's private guards had prevented some food and books from being delivered to her by supporters, but she had enough to survive. "Bad weather and a food problem here is not a big deal compared to what the people are fighting down there."

According to the Montreal Gazette:
 

Kim's case has become a cause célèbre in South Korea, where there is growing anger among the middle and working classes towards the government's business-friendly policies and workers' failure to get a slice of big companies' profits.

Read this rest of this article on BusanHaps.com