"Branch Chief, are you sure this is okay? Managing Director Jo's forehead got split open..."

"It's fine. They're the ones who blocked the talks. All we wanted was to see the CEO—why get in our way? Listen. This company is a joint enterprise built on the blood and sweat of workers like us. What did we do wrong? If they ran it like crap and got it sold off to foreign bastards, then we deserve compensation too. Are the losses our fault? It's the workers who bleed for their bullshit!"

Han Yang-dong, chief of the union branch at Ana Chemical's Yeosu plant, was haranguing the branch secretary.

He'd always been a hard-liner, but he'd never dared make a peep. Ana's chairman, Oh Seung-hyeok, was too ruthless.

Oh Seung-hyeok had come down hard on the union, but the pay had always been decent.

Ana Chemical's salaries were in the top tier of the petrochemical industry.

This time, though, greed had really taken hold.

A month ago, the branch had joined the Chemical and Petroleum Workers' Federation, under the Daehan Federation of Trade Unions.

The Daehan Federation of Trade Unions was so hard-line that the members had balked, but Han Yang-dong talked them into it.

Foreign companies, he told them, raised your pay the minute you went on strike.

He mixed in a lie, too: that the company had been bought by a bunch of financier bastards with cash to burn.

In the race for branch chief, he ran on campaign promises that made no sense at all.

Guaranteed retirement at sixty-five. A thirty-million-won performance bonus from a company that had run a deficit this year. Consolation money for the foreign takeover, plus three thousand shares for a say in management.

On top of that, priority full-time hiring for members' children, summer vacation pay at 300 percent, and a raise of more than ten percent.

The leadership of the Chemical and Petroleum Workers' Federation told him they had at least that much coming.

They stirred him up, too: foreign capital had to be taught a lesson.

At first Han Yang-dong had hesitated.