Shipyard strikers on rampage

Press, 4 April 1989, Page 8

Shipyard strikers on rampage

NZPA-Reuter Ulsan, South Korea About 3000 strikers rampaged through streets near South Korea’s largest shipyard flanked by thousands of fully-geared combat police, on Sunday. Eyewitnesses said the workers set fire to a police vehicle, broke tiles covering pedestrian ways and hurled rocks and petrol bombs at police trying to disperse them with tear gas. All shops had pulled down their shutters. The workers, fighting police for the fourth consecutive day since being evicted from the

giant Hyundai yard on Thursday, demanded the resignation of President Roh Tae-woo and the arrest the of Hyundai founder, Chung Juyung, they said. A police spokesman said 150 police had been injured since Thursday, most of them hit by firebombs or stones. About 100 radical students from Seoul and other areas eluded heavily guarded check? points on roads leading to the industrial city of Ulsan and joined the strikers, a student leader said.

The students, armed with iron pipes and wearing make-shift masks, belong to a nationwide student body, Chondaehyop, which vowed to attack Hyundai headquarters in Seoul yesterday. A company spokesman said Hyundai planned to resume full production at the yard, yesterday. The yard has been paralysed for more than 100 days because of strikers’ demands for better conditions and higher pay. It employs 19,000 workers.