South Koreans who work on U.S. military bases gather near Yongsan Garrison to protest U.S. Forces Korea's announcement that it might cut up to 1,000 jobs. (T.D. Flack / Stars and Stripes)

SEOUL — Fifty-year-old Jung Bong-suk sat outside the South Korean War Memorial on Thursday afternoon, protesting his employer: U.S. Forces Korea.

He wasn’t alone. Thousands of South Korean employees who work on U.S. bases gathered across the peninsula Thursday to protest an early-April USFK announcement that it might cut up to 1,000 jobs because South Korea cut the amount of money it pays the United States to base its troops on the peninsula.

In late April, U.S. and South Korean officials initialed a two-year agreement that requires the South Koreans to pay 680.4 billion won (about $680 million) annually, an 8.9 percent drop from last year’s 746.9 billion won payment.

In response, nearly 90 percent of the 13,000-member Korean Employees Union voted last week to stage Thursday’s protest and another on June 3, when employees from across the country will gather in Seoul. Union leaders also are working with South Korea’s government on a possible strike.

“I have a family to feed, my two sons are going to high school,” Jung said Thursday. “If the full strike is the only way to keep me on the job, I will definitely join.”

More than 600 workers gathered outside Yongsan and another 200 outside Uijongbu train station, near Camp Falling Water, which USFK recently announced it will close later this year.

Union officials said they would have final totals Friday but as of late Thursday afternoon, they estimated almost 3,000 workers gathered to protest across South Korea.

Kang In-shik, Korean Employees Union president, spoke to the crowd near Yongsan, angrily criticizing South Korea and USFK for any possible job cuts.

Kang said the employees know some jobs might be cut as U.S. forces downsize in South Korea but that the sudden announcement in April “without prior notice to us is a terrible one-sided agreement we can’t accept.”

Chi Hyon-taek, president of the Seoul-area union chapter, said he feels the South Korean workers are paying the price for faulty U.S.-South Korean negotiations.

“The negotiation process is flawed because it didn’t take into consideration the people who would lose their jobs,” he said through a union translator.

Chi stressed the demonstration would remain peaceful, a goal he communicated to his chapter’s members through a letter last week.

“This is a democratic way to express our opinions,” he said.

Uijongbu-area union president Kang Hyong-to said South Korean employees in Area I are concerned about proposed job cuts.

“Our employees are serious about their jobs,” he said. “They don’t want to lose them.”

Both the U.S. and South Korean governments are to blame for the threat to base workers’ jobs, said Kang, who has worked as a painter at Camp Falling Water for 18 years.

Another protester, An Tok-hwan, a firefighter based at Camp Falling Water, said that at age 50, he thinks his job is at risk and fears he will find nothing on the local economy.

“You have to be young to get a job with the South Korean fire department,” he said.

USFK officials contacted late Thursday said it would be inappropriate to comment on the protests.

South Koreans who work on U.S. military bases gather near Yongsan Garrison to protest U.S. Forces Korea's announcement that it might cut up to 1,000 jobs. (T.D. Flack / Stars and Stripes)

Two South Korean men who work on U.S. military bases in the Seoul area gather with hundreds of co-workers Thursday for a near Yongsan Garrison. (T.D. Flack / Stars and Stripes)

Protesters near Yongsan Garrison. (T.D. Flack / Stars and Stripes)

South Koreans riot police watch South Koreans who work on U.S. military bases in the Seoul area stage a protest Thursday near Yongsan Garrison. (T.D. Flack / Stars and Stripes)

South Korean base workers protest near Uijongbu train station on Thursday. (Seth Robson / Stars and Stripes)