From New Democracy and the Solidarity Committee
[newdemocracyworld.org]

Greetings from the United States of America to the Korean working people!

We are members of the United Auto Workers Local 879, who have formed a committee of solidarity at a Ford Plant in St. Paul, Minnesota.

We support the struggles of electricity, railway and gas workers to resist privatization in those industries. Your government demands privatization and restructuring to satisfy the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, institutions controlled by the global capitalist elite. We are aware of the history of determined struggles of Korean workers and students. We applaud the fact that tens of thousands of union autoworkers at Kia and Hyundai and Ssangyong Motors joined the general strike in support of the utility workers. We condemn the arrests of unionists and any attempts by the government to silence these legitimate protests.

We believe that American working people and Korean working people have the same enemies and the same goals for a better world. For example, last summer the Daewoo workers marched against layoffs and the proposed takeover of Daewoo auto by General Motors Corporation.

We greatly admire the militancy and courage and efforts at mutual aid of the South Korean workers. General strikes and alliances with students are powerful weapons of the working class which our unions have failed to utilize in defense of American workers in recent history. The official leadership of American unions has abandoned that most sacred principle -- "an injury to one is an injury to all."

No single union or national group of unions can stand up for long without support against the multinational corporations and the governments which serve them. We need an international labor movement based on the values of ordinary people, a revolutionary movement that opposes the undemocratic systems of both communism and capitalism and fights for true democracy based on equality and worldwide solidarity.

Let's begin now to break down the barriers and create the international relationships and struggles which can change the whole world.