DATE=03/25/2002

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

NUMBER=2-287938

TITLE=SOKOR/STRIKES (SHORT)

BYLINE=AMY BICKERS

DATELINE=TOKYO

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: South Korea's state-run power monopoly says it will fire more than three-thousand striking workers. As VOA's Amy Bickers reports, the announcement was made after riot police stormed a university campus to disperse the strikers as they held a sit-in.

TEXT: In a joint statement, five affiliates of the Korea Electric Power Corporation, or KEPCO, said that they would proceed with plans to dismiss workers who had not returned to their jobs by a Monday morning deadline set last week.

Since the workers are state employees, the South Korean government has declared the work stoppage illegal. The strike began on February 25th, as a protest against the privatization of the country's power sector, which workers fear could lead to large numbers of job cuts.

Riot police stormed the campus of Seoul's Yonsei University Monday, where the power workers were staging a sit-in for the second day in a row. On Sunday, hundreds of students and labor activists threw fire bombs and rocks at police, who defended themselves with clubs. (SIGNED)

NEB/AB/FC