A press conference was called in Youido to condemn the suppression of the chairman of the confederation.

Speakers at the press conference referred to the fact that the police arrested the chairman on December 5 on charges that he led the actions against American beef import.

They denounced this arrest as politically-motivated crackdown upon the labor movement.

The dictatorial regime forsaken by the people is instigating the security authorities to violate the popular masses' rights, they pointed out, declaring that the confederation would wage the struggle to punish the present "government" on a full scale.

Then, there was a "meeting to vow an all-out struggle for checking the retrogressive revision of the law on part-time jobs and the law on the lowest wage" with over 2,000 unionists affiliated to the confederation attending.

At the meeting, speakers charged that the recent moves of the "government" and the "Grand National Party" to retrogressively revise the said laws are aimed to inflict sufferings only upon the workers and other common people again under the pretext of the economic crisis.

After the meeting, its participants staged a protest struggle in demand of the release of the confederation chairman.

Meanwhile, Chief Vice-Chairperson Jin Yong Ok and other leading members of the confederation staged a sit-in strike in tents outside the "National Assembly" building.