By Min Jeong Kim, KTX Crew Branch Worker of the Korea Federation of Public Services and Transportation Workers’ Union (KPTU)

Right after I woke up this morning, while I was in bed, I started counting from one. It took me a while to get to one thousand. This shows that even counting up to 1,000 takes time. But, we have been fighting for the last 1000 days in order to obtain regular job positions. November 25th 2008 marked the 1000th day of our struggle. I still vividly remember the first day when we went on strike 1000 days ago. And of course, I won’t forget the day when I started working as a KTX crew member.

In April 2004 before KTX (Korea Train Express) started its service, the Korea Railroad Corporation hired 351 KTX female crew members, and the high competition during the recruitment process, was a hot topic among the general population. That time, the corporation and its subsidiary Railroad Distribution Service Corporation used all kinds of possible flowery language in describing the female crew positions to embellish the job itself and working conditions by referring to KTX female workers as ‘Flower of KTX’ and ‘Flight Attendant of Ground. ‘

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