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11-09-2011 19:14

Another Ssangyong worker commits suicide
By Na Jeong-ju
Another plant worker at Ssangyong Motor
was found dead Tuesday in an apparent
suicide, police and the labor ministry said
Wednesday.
The death raises the number of Ssangyong
employees and their family members who
have taken their own lives or died of work-
related diseases since the company
announced a massive layoff plan in April
2009 to 18.
The 46-year-old worker, identified as Yoon,
apparently hanged himself from a tree on a
mountain near Anseong Service Area on the
Seoul-Busan Expressway, the initial
investigation shows. A search operation had
been underway since Yoon was reported
missing late last month.
He didnt leave any note before his death, a
labor ministry spokesman said. We are looking into a possible correlation between
his death and the firms massive dismissal.
Yoon had worked since 1990 at the manufacturing plant in Pyeongtaek, where the
union and laid-off workers held fierce protests for months to nullify the layoff plan.
The automaker shut down the Pyeongtaek plant, but workers occupied it. Eventually,
riot police entered the plant in July that year in a court-approved action to end the
dispute. Unionists shot nuts and bolts using slingshots at police.
Management initially planned to lay off some 2,600 workers, but later scaled down
the plan under the governments arbitration and fired about 500 workers.
There have been a series of suicides by fired workers and their family members. A
recent survey by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions on 193 fired workers
showed some 80 percent were suffering from depression and psychiatric problems.
Unionists claim that hundreds of regular workers who managed to keep their jobs
are also under extreme stress stemming from the loss of their former coworkers.
On Oct. 10, a laid-off worker, surnamed Kim, killed himself at his home. Family
members said he had been suffering from financial difficulties since being fired in
2009.
About a week earlier, a worker at the Pyeongtaek plant also committed suicide in his
automobile by burning a briquette with the windows closed.
Another former Ssangyong worker was also found dead in May at a plant operated
by the automakers subcontractor. He had worked at the plant as a temporary worker
since he was fired by Ssangyong in 2009.
The Green Hospital said in a report in April that about 80 percent of the fired workers
desperately need therapy and other medical measures to ease their stress.
The chances of them suffering from depression were 3.74-times higher than that of
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