Over 50 trade unionists, students and human rights activists joined together on January 10, 1997 at the Korean Consulate in San Francisco to protest the repression of the Korean trade union movement. The demonstration like others around the world was called in support of the Korean general strike by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. There were demonstrations in Paris, Brussels and others countries around the world as well as Los Angeles.

The San Francisco picket which was supported by a coalition of organizations including leaders of a number of San Francisco unions. Pat Wright, president of the Sign And Display Workers Local 510, Fred Pecker, West Bay Business Agent of ILWU Local 6. Also Bob Martin, president of the East Bay Chapter of FORUM also spoke in solidarity with the strike.

Speaker after speaker called for support to the workers of Korea and demanded that the Korean government end the repression of organized labor. Fred Pecker of the ILWU reported on the struggle of the Rubber Stampede workers to organize a union in the eas t bay and how they as well were met with union busting.

A delegation from the picket line also met with the Consulate General and called for the Korean government to end the repression and recind the new labor laws. The Consulate General told them that "Korea had to be globally competitive" and had a "balance of payments problem" that required these economic measures.

One of the delegates, David Walters, president of the San Francisco Construction Unit of IBEW 1245 and a representative of the San Francisco Chapter of the International Liaison Committee For A Workers International told the Consul General that US workers considered the workers in Korea their brothers and sisters and US workers would take action if the anti-labor attacks continued.

One of the speakers at the rally was Ron Tenity representing the 1.4 million member International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Tenity read a statement from the president Ron Carey that solidarized with the strikers and declared that "Any retaliation by your government against Korean workers exercising this universal right will be viewed by the Teamsters Union as the most serious of human rights violations and we will respond in the swiftest and strongest means available." Tenity also announced that a similar protest had taken place only hours before in front of the Korean Embassy in Washington. The picket was also joined by members of the Asian Immigrant Workers Advocates, Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates. Student drummers from the Korean Youth Cultural Center also provided a spirited drumbeat in solidarity with the picket line.

Not surprisingly, the US capitalist press was completely silent about these national protests at the Korean embassy and consulates.

The US government as well is hoping the strikes will be defeated. In their only reaction so far, unquoted US officials in Korea in the Washington Post say that the laws and resulting strikes are only "political hiccups" in the way to democracy.

Plans are also going forward to build support for the strike and for the use of videos on the struggle of the Korean workers to educate US working people.

Also, efforts are being made to publicize the historic general strike home page produced by the Korean Telecom Task Group For The General Strike. The URL address of the pages is http://kpd.sing-kr.org/strike/index-e.html