According to the Korean Metalworkers’ Union (KMWU), on 9 August 2010, following a KMWU appeal, the Seoul High Court reduced the sentence of Mr. Han Sang-kyun, former Chair of the KMWU Ssangyong Motor Company Union, from four years to three years. The court also freed 21 other trade unionists imprisoned in the same case. However, they are all released with a three- or four-year suspended sentence, which means that if arrested during this period they will have to serve the full term of their court sentences, inevitably resulting in severe restrictions of their union activities. Mr. Kwon Sun-man, a KMWU vice president, was set to be released in October while KMWU executive member Mr. Kim Hyuk, is still serving a four-year sentence.
The unionists were imprisoned in 2009 after a 77-day strike by the Ssangyong Motor Company Union started after the company ordered mass dismissals without notifying the union and thus in violation of the existing collective agreement. In August 2009 Ssangyong Motor management also broke off negotiations and organised riot police to storm the plant’s paint shop where around 700 workers had held a sit-in strike since May. Most of the strikers have had difficulties finding new jobs because they have been blacklisted in the local community.