TOKYO — Striking workers from unions representing 1.7 million members shut down much of South Korea's economy today in escalating protests against a new labor law and feared threats to civil liberties.
The main target of worker fury was a law passed in a secretive predawn parliamentary session Thursday that makes it easier for employers to lay off workers and to hire replacements for strikers.
Another law rushed through the National Assembly on Thursday in a lightning-fast session attended only by members of the ruling New Korea Party gives greater investigative powers to the National Security Planning Agency, South Korea's equivalent of the CIA.
President Kim Young Sam's government argued that the bills were necessary to boost South Korea's economy and guard against threats from Communist North Korea.
But labor leaders and opposition politicians charged that the government was taking away workers' rights to job security, blocking union organizing and seeking to suppress legitimate dissent.
Nearly 150,000 workers from a technically illegal union with 500,000 members went on strike Thursday, with many more joining this morning. Another union with 1.2 million members called for an indefinite work stoppage starting this afternoon. Together, the two unions' actions could devastate South Korea's economy.
"Negative reaction from the unions was expected, but not to this extent," said Lee Dae Chang, an analyst at Kia Economic Research Institute. "The outlawed Korea Democratic Confederation of Trade Unions had been rather cooperative with the government with the hope that the type of labor system typical of advanced countries would be introduced to Korea . . . but now they feel they have been betrayed."
Thursday's strike idled more than 100 major South Korean companies, including the nation's leading auto maker, Hyundai Motor Co., and the world's largest shipyard. An additional 32 major businesses were shut down this morning, while strikes starting this afternoon could affect about 5,500 other firms. Transportation workers also threatened strikes across the nation starting Saturday.
The stage has been set for a potentially bruising battle between labor on one side and business and government on the other that some fear could last for months.
The Korea composite stock price index, reflecting those concerns, dropped 2.8% Thursday to close at 659.01, its lowest level in 45 months.
