SOUTH KOREA DAEWOO MOTORS PROTESTORS

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(19 Feb 2001) Korean/Nat • XFA • There were fierce clashes between protestors and riot police at Daewoo's main plant in South Korea on Monday, where 350 laid-off workers and their families are staging a sit- in protest. • • Monday was the fourth straight day of the sit-in inside the factory. • • Outside the sprawling plant in Bupyong, 18 miles (30 kilometers) west of Seoul, 200 workers forcefully confronted 2-thousand riot police blocking them from joining the protesters inside. • • Although, the protesters were outnumbered, they were equipped with water hoses and riot sticks. • • After weeks of negotiations with the union failed, Daewoo Motor laid off 1,751 workers on Friday to complete its first-stage restructuring plan, a step it said was necessary to make it more attractive to the U-S corporation General Motors. • • G-M began negotiations to take over Daewoo in September but it reportedly is reluctant to continue without layoffs. • • Last week's dismissals reduced Daewoo's total work force by 44 percent to 10,655. • • Most of the layoffs came from the company's main plant which lacked efficiency because of its outdated facilities. • • About 300 laid-off workers and their families began a sit-down protest Friday night inside the Bupyong plant. • • Early on Saturday, they were joined by 50 workers who slipped past police lines. • • An estimated 25-hundred riot police, armed with helmets, batons and plastic shields, blocked all gates into the plant. • • In scattered clashes over the weekend, at least two workers and three riot police were slightly injured, police said. • • Police obtained arrest warrants for 30 union leaders but were reluctant to move into the plant for fear of violent clashes. • • Workers erected barricades at the gates with trucks and other steel structures. • • The government of President Kim Dae-jung considers layoffs a necessary step toward revamping the nation's bloated big businesses and regaining investor confidence in the economy. • • South Korea's labor market has become more flexible in recent years but workers, accustomed to lifetime employment, still resist layoffs. • • Daewoo Motor, South Korea's third largest carmaker, collapsed in the midst of the 1997- 98 Asian economic crisis. • • It has been surviving under court receivership since it filed for bankruptcy in November under an estimated bank debt of 10 (b) billion ($US) dollars. • • Daewoo has the capacity to make 2 million vehicles a year at home and abroad. Although in financial troubler, it could help foreign auto giants crack open South Korea's car market and serve as a stepping stone into nearby China, one of the fastest-growing car markets in Asia. • • SOUNDBITE: (Korean) • I am desperate. I will be kicked out from a company where I have worked for tens of years and lose my home ? How could I have not come here to join the strike with my family in this situation? • SUPER CAPTION: Vox Pop Daewoo Motors worker • • SOUNDBITE: (Korean) • No one wants to be responsible to look for former CEO, Kim Woo-jung's money; 25 or 40 trillion Korean won (the local currency) allows Kim Woo-jung to go abroad. But in reality we, workers, are kicked out to the streets in this freezing-cold winter. • SUPER CAPTION: Kuk Sun-dae, Daewoo Motors worker • • Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork • Twitter: / ap_archive • Facebook: / aparchives • Instagram: / apnews • • • You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...

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