Cleaners at three major private universities in Seoul went on strike Tuesday, calling for wage raise.

About 860 cleaners and janitors of Korea University, Ewha Womans University and Yonsei University started the sit-in at 6 a.m.

More than 86 percent of the unionized workers at the schools agreed to strike in a recent vote.

A labor group representing the cleaners, under the hardline umbrella union the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, said the employers, nine outsourcing companies of the three schools, have refused the employees’ demand to pay them 5,180 won ($4.6) per hour. Their managements are reportedly stuck with 4,320 won per hour, the government’s Maginot line for minimum wage this year. 

“A worker makes an average of 800,000 won a month. That barely makes one’s ends meet. Half of my colleagues are bread earners of their families, which makes things even worse,” said Shim Bok-ki, head of the Ewha labor union, in an interview with a daily.

She said their requests are nothing lucrative, but a cry for help. “It is more of a sign of respect for what we do ― whether we could make a living with what we do in the campus despite the invisible discrimination and ignorance we face every day.”

Industry insiders said it’s the schools that have the solution to the uproar.

“Many schools deny their roles in the strike, claiming that the business is strictly between the outsourcing companies and their employees. However, they must admit that they are the practical users of the cleaners’ labors and that they should take certain amount of responsibility in the incident,” KCTU staff worker Ryu Nam-mi said.

Ewha University students have launched a campaign asking for the school to press the cleaners’ companies to raise their fees, while some at Yonsei are helping the cleaners’ protest separately inside the campus, asking the university president to pay them undue wages on behalf of the irresponsible outsourcers.

Still, the schools remain on the fence. They refuse to face the workers and prefer talking to their outsourcers. On the other hand, they are rather anxious about whether the halt of cleaning duties will affect school affairs.

A spokesman of the Korea University reaffirmed to the Yonhap news agency that the school has no intention of providing a pay raise. “We are expected to suffer from the aftermath of the strike since it is the beginning of a new semester. We aren’t considering replacing the protesters with other cleaners but the school staff workers may have to do some extra cleaning to maintain certain level of hygiene in the campus,” he said.

Spokesmen of other schools said they will seek to enhance the welfare of the cleaners but did not elaborate on whether a pay raise is included in the solution.

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)