A 600,000-strong South Korean labour group on Tuesday announced a one-day strike next month to protest against the president's economic reform plans, adding pressure on the embattled leader facing calls for his ouster.
The move by the militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, which represents Hyundai Motor and other workers, comes as President Lee Myung-bak is trying to resolve a truckers' strike over soaring fuel costs that has paralysed the export-dependent country's ports. South Korea's justice minister called the strikes illegal and vowed a crackdown if the strikers did not return to work.
"If these illegal acts continue, we will have no choice but to handle them in accordance with the principles of law and order," Minister Kim Kyung-han said in a televised statement. He did not say what actions would be taken.
The KCTU's one-day strike set for July 2 is not as drastic as a plan its leaders had previously unveiled to local media, which called for an escalating series of work stoppages from this week that would increasingly hurt the economy. About 70 percent of KCTU members voted to strike over Lee's plans to privatise state-run firms, reform pension systems, cut corporate taxes as well as in anger at the deal his government signed to resume imports of US beef, the group said.