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WORKERS at a South Korean guitar manufacturer have settled a 13-year dispute — involving hunger strikes, occupations and self-immolation — over dismissals for joining a trade union and demanding workers’ rights.
The dispute, the longest industrial conflict in the country’s history, began in 2007 when Cort Guitar sacked 25 staff for joining the Korean Metal Workers Union (KMWU).
An international campaign, including support from the Unite union, put pressure on the company to settle the dispute, which it finally did this week after a letter sent by British trade unions to the company’s British partners Mason Guitar Works was picked up in the South Korean press.
SHARON GRAHAM reflects on the lessons of Murdoch’s confrontation with print workers – and argues that, in an age of AI, automation and net zero, only early organisation, collective power and planning can stop history repeating itself
Enduring myths blame print unions for their own destruction – but TONY BURKE argues that the Wapping dispute was a calculated assault by Murdoch on organised labour, which reshaped Britain’s media landscape and casts a long shadow over trade union rights today
Solidarity is needed for the longest strike in NHS history, argues HENRY FOWLER of Strike Map