PSI is requesting its affiliates to send letters of protest to the government of South Korea to register their serious concern about the deterioration of the situation of trade union rights for public sector workers and the increase in repression by the Korean Government against PSI's affiliate, the Korean Government Employees Union (KGEU). Despite repeated recommendations and protests from the international community to stop repression and to guarantee government employees' trade union rights, the Korean government has constantly proceeded with actions aimed at destroying the KGEU. The government repression o­n the KGEU has continued and even seriously deteriorated while the ILO Asia Regional Meeting is being held in Busan, Korea.

Two KGEU offices have been forcefully closed up to now. o­ne is the KGEU Gyeongnam Regional Branch office at Gyeongnam Provincial Government, and this was forcefully closed down and sealed off by the authorities o­n August 30th. The other is the KGEU Gyeonggi Regional Branch and provincial government Chapter office at Gyeonggi Provincial Government, which was forcefully closed down and sealed off with iron plates o­n May 27th.

The MOGAHA insisted that, as of August 31st, six KGEU local offices have been "voluntarily" closed down as of August 31st. But it is not true. 2 of them were not union offices, 2 others are still used as KGEU offices and the rest are those where the KGEU chapters had stopped working long before. This is a desperate attempt by the Korean government to try to 'prove' that there are substantial move to "transform illegal organisations into legal trade unions".

On August 16, over 1,000 members of the Pohang local union, an affiliate of the Korean Federation of Construction Industry Trade Union (KFCITU), KCTU were participating in a legal and peaceful demonstration to protest the death of o­ne of their colleague, Ha Jeung Keun, who died as result of severe beating he suffered under the hands of the riot police in a demonstration to support the union's strike that began o­n July 1. In the midst of a peaceful procession, where some union members wore funeral dress and held photos of Ha Jeung Keun, the police blocked the union members from marching toward the National Police headquarters. Unable to proceed further, the union chose to conduct a sitdown demonstration o­n the streets of Seoul. The riot police responded by forcibly arresting the union members. In the end 736 union members were arrested including key leadership of the KCTU, the Korean Democratic Labor Party, and the KFCITU.

On behalf of the Regional Consultation o­n Women Construction Workers in Chennai, India, held from the 25-30, August 2006, we would like to state some of our concerns. The consultation brought together women activists and trade unionists from Cambodia, Nepal, South Korea, The Philippines and India to discuss issues facing women construction workers in our own countries and in Asia as a whole.

The Regional Consultation was organized by Committee for Asian Women together with local construction workers� organizations and unions in Chennai, India. The Committee for Asian Women has been working o­n the issues of women workers for the last 28 years. We have been working with women workers� organizations and unions in over 15 countries.

The July 2006 collapse of the (multilateral) Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations was hailed as a victory in the fight against corporate-led globalization. Yet, Washington's sustained focus o­n bilateral free trade regimes is equally, if not more, damaging than WTO policies. Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) have bankrupted farmers, resulted in the loss of millions of jobs, made life-saving medicines unaffordable for people in poor countries, and lowered health, safety and environmental standards. Ultimately, the bilateral free trade agreements made by our governments aggregate even more power in the hands of already powerful and destructive transnational corporations. FTAs are inevitably accompanied by serious declines in the welfare of citizens.