South Korean Union Official Dies After Setting Himself on Fire for May Day

A South Korean labor union official died in a Seoul hospital on Tuesday after setting himself on fire during a May Day protest. The official was evidently in distress over a pretrial hearing over extortion charges.

South Korean labor unions used the communist holiday of “International Workers’ Day” to press demands for higher wages, better benefits, and shorter working hours. The most militant of labor organizations, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), vowed to hold a general strike in July if its demands were not met.

Union demonstrators were generally hostile to conservative President Yoon Suk-Yeol, accusing him of union-busting and policies opposed to the labor establishment.

“The Yoon administration has created a prosecutor’s republic and is practicing a politics of fear that is pushing democracy backwards. Raids have become routine, and there is a new story each day about construction workers being arrested,” charged KCTU chairman Yang Kyung-soo.

“Their aim is to dissolve democratic unions by attacking existing unions such as the KCTU by labeling them illegal, corrupt, violent, and accusing them of espionage,” Yang said.

The 50-year-old man who burned himself to death, identified by the surname “Yang” in South Korean media reports, was an officer in the Gangwon provincial chapter of the Korean Construction Workers’ Union (KCWU), which is affiliated with the KCTU. 

Yang was the subject of a racketeering investigation launched in February. He allegedly participated in forcing construction companies to hire union members and pay exorbitant union expenses. Prosecutors reportedly intended to charge him with extorting almost $60,000 from construction companies over the past year.

Prosecutors obtained an arrest warrant for Yang last Wednesday. He was due to appear at Chuncheon District Court on Monday afternoon along with two other union leaders for “pre-arrest questioning.”

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Instead, Yang appeared outside the Gangneung branch office of Chuncheon District Court on Monday morning and set himself on fire. Before killing himself, he wrote a social media post to other union leaders claiming that he acted “lawfully and without committing crimes,” so the charges of “obstruction of business and intimidation” against him were groundless.

“My pride cannot abide this,” he said.

KCTU leaders rallied to Yang’s defense, effectively blaming the courts and the Yoon administration for driving him to suicide with a “far-fetched” investigation “based only on management’s side of the story,” as the head of the Gangwon KCWU office put it.

“Through the condemnation of lawful union activities as illegal, over 1,000 construction laborers have been secretly investigated and 15 arrested. The administration will have to take responsibility for trampling on human dignity,” KCWU chair Chang Ok-ki said at a rally on Monday.

One of the legendary heroes of the South Korean labor movement was Chun Tae-il, a 22-year-old garment worker who burned himself to death in 1970 to protest exploitative wages and working conditions. Chun is hailed as a labor “martyr,” and his biography remains popular with South Korean students.