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In a highly significant public statement, the President of FKTU Lee Young Deuk said today that his confederation will join the country's other confederation KCTU to support the shop workers' struggle against a bad E.Land management. Mr Lee is the former president of the UNI Korea Liaison Council.

Yesterday in Seoul, UNI's Jan Furstenborg and Jay Choi met FKTU President Lee Young Deuk, who previously lead the UNI Korea Liaison Council. Other participants in the meeting at FKTU Headquarters were the present chairman of UNI Korea Liaison Council Kim Dong Man  - who also heads the country's powerful finance workers' trade union - and FKTU international director Kang Choong Ho. The discussions focused on the E.Land workers' struggle to achieve employment security and other basic rights for those who have been working with so-called non-regular contracts. Their trade union is member of UNI affiliate KFSU, which is part of the country's other union confederation, KCTU. Left to right in the picture: Jay Choi, Lee Young Deuk, Jan Furstenborg, Kim Jong Man and Kang Choong Ho.

- We will cut off E.Land's financial pipelines if necessary, the FKTU president said. He added that his organisation supports the plans to launch a consumer boycott against the Korean retailer, which now operates the 32 former Carrefour hypermarkets under the Homever name. The company also owns several New Core Outlet department stores and Kim's Club food discounters.

Mr Lee's statement shows how significant this labour struggle is for the whole Korean trade union movement. As the FKTU president said, this is not only a question about the difficult conditions of these non-regular employees, but also a basic issue about management competence and attitudes towards their workers.

A new negotiating session between E.Land and its trade union started in the early evening hours. They are, however, shadowed by the continued detention of the E.Land workers' trade union president Kim Kyung-wook and by the threat of arrest hanging over other union representatives.

Yesterday, UNI representatives Jan Furstenborg and Jay Choi met for several hours with senior representatives of the Korean Labour Ministry. They underlined the importance of the request of the International Labour Organisation ILO yesterday to the Korean authorities to secure the release of Mr Kim from detention, as well as the cancellation of the arrest warrants which complicate the participation of twelve other E.Land union leaders in the ongoing efforts to seek a collective agreement solution.