Yoon’s crackdown on South Korea truckers’ strike leads to ‘dictator’ comparisons
- Yoon Suk-yeol’s government is being criticised for ordering truckers to end their week-long walkout or face the threat of having their licences cancelled
- Some observers have compared Yoon’s hard-line crackdown to the leadership styles of past military dictators
The week-long nationwide work action, centred on discontent over minimum wage, disrupted industrial activity in Asia’s fourth-largest economy, leading to an estimated 300 billion won (US$224 million) in losses each day.
Seoul subway workers on Wednesday joined the wide-ranging walkout, launching their first strike in six years after negotiations with management over redundancies collapsed. Train operations were consequently cut by 30 per cent during off-peak hours.
Yoon, a former prosecutor general who left a three-decade legal career to enter politics last year, said on Tuesday the government had to firmly establish “the rule of law” to manage the strike.
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South Korean president warns of crackdown on crippling trucker strike
“[Some people] may think it would be convenient to compromise, but it would only lead to another illegal strike. In order to settle labour-management issues peacefully, the rule of law must be firmly established, no matter how hard it would be to do so,” Yoon said.
