MORE than a million South Korean workers were urged to join a mass strike yesterday. Nurses walked off hospital wards, shipyards were made idle and militant unionists raised clenched fists on a Seoul plaza in protest at new, labour laws.
Residents of the capital braced for transport chaos today as subway drivers voted to join the stoppages. More than four million passengers a day are carried through the capital's main subway arteries.
The biggest shock was a decision by the normally docile Federation of Korean Trade Unions to confront the government over the passage of a tough new labour law. That decision threatens to bring out around 1.5 million workers.
The federation announced that a 24 hour strike planned to start at noon yesterday would be extended until the end of the month, and possibly into next year.
"If the strikes are extended into the new year that will basically mean an indefinite strike," said the chairman of the Korea Federation, Mr Park In-sang.
The Finance Minister, Mr Han Seung-soo, argued that the new law protected jobs in the long term by making South Korea's economy more flexible, and therefore more competitive. The law also allows companies to replace strikers.
In the south eastern city of Ulsan, leather clad motorcyclists roared through the centre in a "honking protest" against the bill. Ulsan is the home of the mighty Hyundai group that makes everything from computer chips to ships. Around 1,500 bikers, all of them disgruntled Hyundai employees, paraded around the streets trailing banners and sounding their horns.
Meanwhile, bundled in thick blankets against the cold, opposition deputies continued their occupation of the National Assembly. They, are protesting at the government's tactics in ramming through the labour law and another controversial law boosting the powers of the once notorious domestic spy agency.
The bills were passed literally under cover of darkness at a dawn sitting of parliament on Thursday when opposition lawmakers were still sleeping.