South Korea shipyard strike ends, crane protest goes on

SEOUL: A six-month strike at a South Korean shipyard has ended, the company said Monday, but a female labour activist had not yet abandoned a solo protest atop a 35-metre (115-foot) crane.

The stoppage began on December 20 at the yard owned by Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction in the southern port city of Busan, after the company announced plans to cut 400 jobs through an early retirement package.

"Union leaders agreed to end the strike and resumed talks with management," a company spokesman told AFP, adding the shipyard has almost no backlog of orders because of the labour strife.

Activist Kim Jin-Suk, who began her crane protest on January 6 to support the strikers, was however still there on Monday afternoon, management and union officials said.

A union official said Kim rejected an order from court officials to come down and the officials had spread cushioning material under the crane in case of a fall.

Hanjin shut down the yard in February. In May, hundreds of picketing activists clashed with security guards hired by the company, leaving 24 people injured.

Hanjin, which was once among the world's 10 largest shipyards, said the strike had cost some 16 billion won ($15 million). The company posted a net loss of 51.7 billion won last year.

Hanjin has reduced its workforce in Busan since it opened a shipyard in the northern Philippine port of Subic Bay. It now has about 700 unionised workers, 700 non-union workers and 1,500 people working on temporary contracts at Busan.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011