Attending the meeting were more than 2 000 members of the trade union and solidarity organization.

The speakers at the meeting accused the Ministry of Land and Marine Development of repeatedly expressing its will to give big businessmen special privilege and convert tens of thousands of railway workers to part-timers in a bid to privatize railways, a threat to their right to existence.

They also condemned the Lee Myung Bak "government" for seeking to privatize all fields including healthcare, gas and electricity and thus bring large profits to big businessmen.

The present "government's" pro-big businessmen and anti-worker policy is putting not only the workers' right to existence but the security of railways at serious peril, they deplored.

They declared that the organization would launch the all-people movement to hold in check the authorities' plan and build instead safe public railways.