Tens of thousands of workers walked off their jobs today and staged polite protests against layoffs and the increasing use of temporary workers.
A similar scene was repeated at Myongdong Cathedral, the Roman Catholic church in central Seoul that has long been a haven for labor protesters fleeing the tear gas and cudgels of the riot police.
Workers expressed anger at the conglomerates, or chaebol, whose owners seem to be escaping the hardships suffered by average Koreans, and at the Government, which passed a law in February making it easier to lay off workers as part of an effort to prod the conglomerates to restructure.
Sentiment is also running against the International Monetary Fund, which made increased ''labor flexibility'' -- a euphemism for layoffs -- a condition of its $58 billion bailout.
Although labor protests are not widely popular here at the moment, economic conditions are getting more severe as companies that have muddled along hoping for a quick turnaround are being forced to take drastic measures.
Adding a new demand to its list, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, which represents more than 500,000 members of the country's more militant labor unions, demanded today that the Government renegotiate the ''labor flexibility'' issue with the I.M.F.
The confederation is also insisting that the Government improve the social welfare network and force reform on the conglomerates.
But despite the oratory booming from loudspeakers throughout the city, the atmosphere was more festive than threatening. Just down the street from the cathedral, in a popular shopping district, young people in trendy clothes took advantage of the warm weather to stroll about and haggle with street vendors.
Nonetheless, Mr. Balfour and others say, there is potential for the labor situation to worsen as deteriorating financial circumstances force more companies to resort to layoffs.
The confederation said that it would continue negotiating with the Government, but said that if its demands were not met, it would call a open-ended general strike for June 10.
So far there have been no wide-scale layoffs, though the unemployment rate is now more than twice what it was at the end of last year. Many employees have chosen early retirement, agreed to work part time or accepted temporary unemployment. Many of the newly unemployed are white-collar workers who do not belong to unions.
The Hyundai Motor Company has said it will lay off 8,000 workers in June or July unless it can reach a compromise with its union, which has thus far refused to discuss other options.
No other big companies announced mass layoffs, which is unusual in a country where the herd instinct is strong in the business world. But Mr. Yang, the labor leader, said Korea Telecom had told its employees that 10,000 may lose their jobs. Company officials could not be reached for comment.
Frank Shin, a spokesman for Hyundai, said that because 1,400 employees had accepted early retirement, the company now expects to lay off fewer than 8,000.
Hyundai's production lines in Ulsan were shut down this afternoon when more than 10,000 workers walked out, preventing the production of some 5,400 cars, Mr. Shin said. Newspaper and television reports put the number of striking workers at Hyundai at 30,000.
The workers promised they would return promptly at 5 P.M. on Thursday, an unusual bit of courtesy considering the violent confrontations that have marked Hyundai's labor relations in the past.