by Our Foreign Desk

THOUSANDS of anti-government protesters marched in cities across South Korea yesterday, denouncing the labour policies of increasingly unpopular President Park Geun Hye.

Yesterday’s rallies were organised by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions.

They come about a week after police clashed violently in the capital Seoul with demonstrators denouncing the government’s handling of a ferry disaster that killed over 300 people a year ago.

A confederation spokesman said that the rally had been attended by over 10,000 people in Seoul and passed off without significant conflict with police, although sporadic clashes were reported in other cities.

Unions are deeply critical of policies that they warn will reduce job security and wary of a revised pension system for government employees.

Elsewhere in the country, the government struggled to prevent company managers conceding to North Korean wage rise demands for workers in the Kaesong joint industrial zone.

The Unification Ministry admitted that around a dozen South Korean companies operating in the border zone had, in defiance of Seoul’s directions, signed a note promising to pay an increased wage to Kaesong workers.

The North unilaterally announced a pay rise in February for some 50,000 North Koreans employed by the 125 South Korean firms at Kaesong, just north of the border.

South Korea demurred, insisting that under a previous accord, employment conditions in the zone could only be adjusted with the agreement of both sides.

The South Korean ministry has warned that any firms yielding to pressure would face “administrative punitive action.”

As the row intensified, the North set a deadline of yesterday for factory owners to pay the increase or provide a written guarantee that they would do so.

Any company not complying would face arrears charges, it warned.

The North’s proposed pay boost would increase the average monthly sum the South pays for each worker, including allowances, welfare and overtime, from £102.50 to £108.50.

Unification Ministry officials held talks with factory owners late yesterday.

The South Korean firms in Kaesong benefit from cheap labour on top of preferential loans and tax breaks from their government, which also effectively underwrites their investment.