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The Korean Federation of Trade Unions announced today (7th) that it will not participate in the Economic and Social Labor Committee, a consultative body between the labor and management sectors and the government. The Korean Federation of Trade Unions has been fiercely protesting against the police's violent crackdown on workers who were staging a recent sit-in. It has been seven and a half years since the official lines of dialogue between labor and the government were closed.

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The Korean Federation of Trade Unions held an emergency Central Executive Committee meeting today and decided to suspend all participation in the Economic and Social Labor Commission under the President.

It was decided to leave the decision of whether to withdraw or not to the executive branch.

[Lee Ji-hyun, spokesman for the Korean Federation of Trade Unions: From this time onwards, the KCTU will be completely absent from all dialogue mechanisms of the KCTU, but the withdrawal will be entrusted to the executive branch.]

It has been seven years and five months since the Korean Federation of Trade Unions announced in 7 that it would boycott the Tripartite Affairs Committee, the predecessor of the Gyeongju Labor Committee, in protest against the Park Geun-hye government's push to "fire low performers."

The KCTU is a consultative body composed of three parties: labor, management, and the government, but the KCTU withdrew from the organization in 2016, and it would not be possible to operate normally if even the KCTU did not participate.

The decision to boycott the KCTU was decisively influenced by the violent police crackdown and forcible detention of union officials who were holding a sit-in in front of the Gwangyang Steel Plant.

[Kim Dong-myung, Chairman of the Korean Federation of Trade Unions: Behind the bloody crackdown by the violent police, we believe that the Yoon Suk-yeol regime's deep-rooted hatred of labor, political calculations, and tricks are hidden.]

He said that dialogue should be held even in the midst of the war, and asked for dialogue to resolve the issue of labor reform.

[Lee Se-jong, spokesman for the Economic and Social Labor Commission: Since the Korean Federation of Trade Unions is one of the pillars of the labor community, if the dialogue is suspended, many areas of the labor union may suffer. Therefore, the committee will make active efforts to resume tripartite dialogue as soon as possible.]

The Korean Federation of Trade Unions announced that it would hold a press conference in front of the presidential office in Yongsan tomorrow morning to fight for the judgment of the regime, and the conflict between the two sides is becoming more and more strong.

(Video Editing: Choi Hye-ran, CG: Eom So-min, Son Seung-pil)

▶ The door to dialogue that has been closed...'Minimum wage · Working hours' seem to drift