SEOUL, South Korea -- Demonstrators and police clashed Saturday after 15,000 workers took to Seoul's streets to demand a shorter workweek and oppose the sale of South Korean car companies to foreign investors.
The protest turned violent when 200 workers and students, hurling rocks and wielding sticks, clashed briefly with police. At least three protesters were injured, witnesses said. One person was bleeding from the head and was taken to a hospital.Police took away several protesters in sporadic clashes that followed, witnesses said.
"Five-day workweek," the protesters chanted, picking up the slogan blared from loudspeakers mounted on vans. "Let's crush foreign sales and protect our right to survival."
Smaller protests were held in about a dozen other cities, organizers said. Those protests in the countryside ended peacefully.
Workers demanded their workweek be cut from 44 hours to 40 hours without a cut in pay, saying South Korea had the longest workweek of all industrialized countries.
They denounced plans to sell ailing Daewoo Motor Co. to a foreign investor. A successful bidder will be chosen by September. Workers fear mass layoffs under foreign ownership.
Last week, French carmaker Renault SA took over another ailing South Korean auto company, Samsung Motors Inc., for $562 million, becoming the first foreign car producer and operator in the country.