News / CJ Logistics turns to Seoul court to evict HQ 'squatters' and resolve strike

Seoul Central District Court Credit Rachel Jin.

South Korea’s largest sector player, CJ Logistics, is seeking a court order to get striking workers occupying its building to leave.

The logistics firm says it has exhausted every other possible way to resolve the protracted industrial action.

On Wednesday CJL applied to the Seoul Central District Court for an order to evict the workers from its HQ and for the court to end the strike.

The police have showed reluctance to act against the workers, who are members of the militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. The court is expected to come to a decision next week.

The strike began on 28 December, when some 1,500 workers, hired by sub-contracted delivery agencies, refused to work and demanded better working conditions and higher wages. They cited the fact that CJ Logistics had increased delivery fees and not acted to prevent unnecessary overwork, as according to an agreement between the government and the logistics industry last year.

Matters escalated on 10 February when the workers occupied the first and third floors of CJ Logistics’ Seoul HQ, and on Monday, rallies were held in front of the Cheonggye Stream in downtown Seoul.

While the workers have left the third floor of the building, they caused further disruption on Tuesday morning when they demonstrated at the company’s logistics terminal in Gwangju, 30km south of Seoul, holding up some 170 trucks until 9am, local time, that day.

Yonhap News reported that a joint civic committee on the CJ Logistics labour conflict, comprising some 90 non-governmental organisations, is appealing to the government and the ruling Democratic Party to mediate.