The strikes have disrupted South Korea’s supply chain and cost more than 3.2 trillion won ($2.44bn) in lost shipments over the first 10 days, the industry ministry said on Sunday. Labour Minister Lee Jung-sik said on Monday that a general strike would not win public support. The effect of a general strike is unclear and depends on participation, said Han Sang-jin, a KCTU spokesperson. The government has said it would extend the current program for three more years.
The Yoon administration has maintained it would not give in to the union’s demands. In their second strike in less than six months, those truckers are fighting the bitter cold and the government’s narrative that they are well paid “labour aristocracy”. That is up from the 21 petrol stations that the industry ministry had said were out of fuel on November 28.Īmid soaring fuel costs, as many as 25,000 truckers are calling on the government to provide a permanent minimum-pay system known as the “Safe Freight Rate”, which was introduced temporarily in 2020 for a small portion of more than 400,000 truckers. About 60 percent of them were in Seoul and Gyeonggi province, a densely populated region near the capital, according to Korea National Oil Corp data. The KCTU said it had planned a walkout on Tuesday to support the truckers’ protests.Īs of Monday afternoon, nearly 100 petrol stations had run out of fuel. A group of US truckers embarked in a convoy of vehicles on Wednesday on a 2,500 mile cross-country trip from Adelanto. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), an umbrella union under which the truckers’ union falls, has called the president’s “start work” order the equivalent of martial law and says the government should negotiate. We are part of many large groups who believe in our founding fathers.
U.s. truckers strike 2022 drivers#
Yoon last week invoked such an order, the first in the country’s history, for 2,500 truckers in the cement industry. Many American truckers joined in solidarity with the Canadians, who have formed a 45-mile-long convoy of up to 50,000 truckers heading to Ottawa to protest the government’s covid vaccine mandate for drivers who cross the US-Canada border. President Yoon Suk-yeol on Sunday ordered preparations to issue a return-to-work order for drivers in sectors such as oil refining and steelmaking, where additional economic damage is expected. The truckers’ strike over a minimum pay programme, which began on November 24, has seen two negotiation sessions between the union and the government, but so far there has been no breakthrough.Īs supplies of fuel and construction materials run low, the South Korean government has stepped up pressure to end the strike. The Canadian protests have already affected Americans and the US economy, with three major US business groups, as well as auto industry trade groups, warning in recent days that the protests are putting additional stress on an already struggling supply chain.A nationwide strike by South Korean truckers has led nearly 100 petrol stations across the country to run dry, government data show, as a national trade union announced it would launch a general strike in support of the drivers. Recent protests blockading Canada’s capital and obstructing a US-Canadian border crossing began among truckers protesting a recent mandate requiring drivers entering Canada to be fully vaccinated or face testing and quarantine requirements. “The convoy will potentially begin in California as early as mid-February and arrive in Washington, DC, as late as mid-March, potentially impacting the Super Bowl LVI scheduled for 13 February and the State of the Union Address scheduled for 1 March,” the bulletin said.
Paul has been vocal against Covid-19 mitigation efforts.ĬNN has reached out to his office for comment.Įarlier this week, the Department of Homeland Security warned state and local law enforcement across the country that it had “received reports of truck drivers planning to potentially block roads in major metropolitan cities in the United States in protest of, among other things, vaccine mandates for truck drivers.” “I hope the truckers do come to America,” he added. Peaceful protest, clog things up, make people think about the mandates.” “Civil disobedience is a time-honored tradition in our country, from slavery to civil rights, you name it. “I’m all for it,” Paul told conservative publication The Daily Signal on Wednesday. Rand Paul said earlier this week he would support a convoy of Canadian truckers protesting Covid-19 vaccine mandates disrupting Sunday’s Super Bowl in Los Angeles and making its way to Washington, saying he hopes they “clog” American cities.
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