Standing in Solidarity against the Abuse of Power

#UniversalFarePlan #CommercialBuildingLeaseProtectionAct #StopPowerAbuse #FranchisePowerAbuse #CardFees #PrivateSchoolCorruption #PublicityOfLand #LTEProductionCost #DiscloseProductionCost #GosiwonFire #PunitiveDamages #ProtectSmallMerchants

Campaign for protecting small merchants

The recent rise in the minimum wage has placed pressure on the small business owners. The current minimum wage policy is a necessary component of a healthy and sustainable economy. However, franchise owners, card companies, and landlords refuse to share the economic burden from raising the minimum wage, instead deferring it entirely to the small business owners. As the prime beneficiaries of capitalism, franchise owners, card companies, and landlords have a social responsibility to help out the small businesses. The People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) organized campaigns with the organizations for small businesses to distribute the economic burden by lowering the franchise membership fee, the credit card fee, and the rent. As a result of these efforts, the was amended in September to protect small business tenants for up to 10 years, and the credit card fees were lowered in December in relief for the small business owners.  

Campaign for housing rights

The situation of public housing in 2018 was not good. Public rental housing was still difficult to get into, and the housing welfare program for the vulnerable group did not improve much. To stabilize residential life and realize housing-related welfare programs, PSPD teamed up with housing-related social organizations and proposed the as a policy for local elections, and organized various activities related to tenant protection policies and the amendment to the . Some of these suggestions were accepted as real policies by several local governments in Seoul and Gyeonggi province. Unfortunately, it was not possible to amend the . Instead, we organized campaigns and lectures to inform tenants in an effort to spread public awareness on the importance of policies that prioritized the housing-rights of citizens.

Campaign to lower mobile phone fees

In 2018, PSPD finally won the information disclosure lawsuit (on the production cost of 2G and 3G networks) at the Supreme Court after 7 years of litigation. Additionally, we obtained data on the production cost of LTE networks (4G). By analyzing these data, we found that mobile carriers had sufficient surplus benefits to rid of the base rate in phone bills altogether. We worked with communication consumer organizations to institutionalize the \11,000 discount of mobile carrier fees for low-income and elder citizens and expand the use of optional discounts in mobile phone contracts. Going forward, we will continue to fight for universal rate plans.

Main Activities

• 01/03 [Press conference] Demand to institutionalize universal rate plans to reduce household mobile phone fees.
• 03/06 [Press conference] Campaign in conjunction with employees, small business owners, and civil societies to urge franchise owners, card companies, and landlords to share the economic burden rising from the increase of minimum wage.
• 04/26 [Panel Discussion] Please! Let’s cut credit card fees!
• 05/16 [Issue report] Evaluation of the policy to prevent unfair practices between franchise shops and headquarters.
• 05/30 [Policy paper] Pronounced the for the local elections.
• 07/11 [Inauguration Ceremony] Initiation of the National People’s Movement to amend the ‘Commercial Building Lease Protection’ Act 
• 09/18 [Panel Discussion] Debate and report on unfair practices related to convenience stores.
• 10/03 [Campaign] 2018 World Habitat Day, Houseless's snail march demanding to secure the right to housing.
• 11/21 [Analysis] Public report on the analysis of disclosed data on the production cost and accounting related to the LTE network.