The statement accused the authorities on Jan. 16 of hurling police into an operation to indiscriminately crack down on the workers' sit-in strike demanding a solution to the labor issues including layoff, abolition of part-time jobs and a halt to the destruction of trade unions.

Through this crackdown they wounded strikers and arrested 8 persons including the head of the organizational department of the Metal Workers' Union, it noted.

The KCTU can no longer remain an onlooker to the present regime's brutal suppression, it warned, calling for intensified actions against the fascist crackdown upon workers.