Police start operation to break up occupation at Ssangyong

(ATTN: UPDATES with details; AMENDS headline)
PYEONGTAEK, South Korea, Aug. 4 (Yonhap) -- Police commandos started Tuesday
moving into a painting facility inside the only assembly plant of Ssangyong Motor
Co. to break up a months-long sit-in protest by fired workers amid fears of a
deadly clash because the facility is packed with inflammable materials.
Some 550 laid-off Ssangyong workers remained inside the painting shop, a
four-story building with a total space of 50,959 square meters, where they have
been since May 22, to protest the company's job cuts.
The mass layoffs were part of a restructuring plan ordered by the court in
February when Ssangyong entered bankruptcy protection.
Scores of commandos seized a roof of another building connected with the painting
shop, while about 300 riot police armed with batons and plastic shields were
approaching within five meters of the occupied building, according to police
officials and witnesses.
The fired workers fought back by shooting nuts and bolts from large slingshots,
hurling Molotov cocktails and rolling out burning tires. Clouds of black smoke
were seen at several spots inside the plant.
"Today, we will enter as far as we can into the painting shop. So it can be said
that operations have essentially begun," said a police official.
Tensions at the plant spiked as last-ditch talks to resolve the standoff
collapsed on Sunday after Ssangyong and the unionists failed to make a
breakthrough over how many fired workers would be given their jobs back.
The company has cut off water and electricity to the paint shop, which is packed
with flammable materials. Since the talks collapsed, 114 fired workers have
voluntarily left the site, according to police.
Ssangyong, which has been under bankruptcy protection since February, has until
Sept. 15 to submit its final turnaround program to its creditors and a bankruptcy
judge.
The standoff has darkened the prospects for the carmaker's survival, costing
nearly 316 billion won (US$259.4 million) in lost production. A group of
Ssangyong suppliers have said they will ask the bankruptcy judge to liquidate the
troubled carmaker on Wednesday.
In the first six months of this year, Ssangyong's sales plunged 73.9 percent from
the same period last year to 13,020 units.
Ssangyong is still 51-percent owned by China's Shanghai Automotive Industry
Corp., but the parent lost management control after Ssangyong entered bankruptcy
protection.
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