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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

When the government peddles POSCO by Javed Iqbal

‘Employment generation’ is the rationale used by every government official from the prime minister to the land acquisition officer to justify the displacement of people for industrial projects. Farmers are aware they are masters of their land but servants of a company.

As for compensation, Basu Behera of Noriyasahi, a POSCO project-affected village, said: “I cultivate betel vines, kaju, about 50 quintals of rice yearly and I get coconuts, pineapples, mangoes. I get ‘compensation’ every week or every other month. POSCO will compensate us once. They can take my land over my dead body.”

On June 3, he was beaten up by the police for opposing land acquisition for POSCO.

Moreover, if the government is serious about employment generation, where does it talk about worker rights? And what does the company concerned say about worker rights?

On July 16, 2006, in South Korea, Ha Jeung Keun, a member of the Pohang local union was beaten by the riot police in a protest against POSCO (Pohang Steel Company). He died a few days later on August 1. A short history of the strike in 2006 would be useful to repeat here.

In July, 2006, over 4,000 workers of the Pohang local union had gone on strike, asking for a 15% increase in wages, a five-day work week, and ‘dignity and respect’ at the work site. This is where workers, like in India, still work around asbestos that is known to cause cancer, where workers are denied social benefits, healthcare, and where it is rare to have a day off.

The union members are hired by sub-contractors, yet a majority of the work given was given by POSCO and the management did inform the union that they’d work towards ‘a positive and constructive resolution’ to the strike. They lied. Two days later, they brought in replacements.

On July 14, the union members, angered by the management, and threatened by riot police action called in by the management, decided to have an indefinite sit-down at the POSCO headquarters.

They were there for nine days, and instead of mediating with the workers, the company cut off the electricity and the water supply for the last four days to remove the ‘intruders’.

In a press release dated July 20, 2006, POSCO said: “Considering the damage to facilities and potential earnings, POSCO has got a physical loss of Korean won 5.37 billion a day and enormous intangible losses including the degradation of corporate image, reputation, and trustworthiness.”

Outside, remaining union members held rallies for solidarity, and violent confrontations with the police led to a large number of injuries and the death to Ha Jeung Keun.

In the end, the workers left the building without any of their demands being met by a stubborn POSCO. Of the workers, 138 were detained, and 58 were jailed. The last one was only released after two and a half years in jail, on January 18, 2009.

The other dirty work was also done by how POSCO utilised the media to paint the union members as ‘gangsters’, and how they organised counter-protests to show that the union was defaming the city of Pohang.

Back to the present in India, POSCO-India has commented on their site that they would ‘pursue a win-win relationship in harmony with community’.

The screaming of ‘Hataao hataao POSCO hataao!’ was heard throughout the barricade of children, women and elderly, who’re fighting to protect their land and their betel vines from destruction on June 11.

But POSCO has a win-win relationship with the government. Jairam Ramesh has gone on record to say forest clearance doesn’t mean forcible land acquisition. Yet in his clearance order, he’s gone on to say only 69 people have signed the Palli Sabha resolution of February 21, and only 64 have signed the Palli Sabha resolution of February 23, rejecting POSCO as per the Forest Rights Act.

There were obviously over 69 and 64 people protesting against land acquisition on June 11. And what he has ignored is that the Palli Sabha resolutions that rejected POSCO had 1,632 people from Dhinkia and 1,365 people from Govindpur who had signed.

Hard copies of those signatures exist with his ministry, yet he has only taken cognizance of the first few pages of a scanned soft copy and thus deprived the people of Govindpur and Dhinkia of their rights as per the Forest Rights Act - and acted in perfect harmony with the needs of Pohang Steel Company.