SEOUL: Thousands of South Koreans marched in Seoul for the second straight day Saturday to protest government labour policies and handling of a ferry disaster that killed more than 300 people a year ago.

A spokesman for the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, Park Seong-shik, said that more than 30,000 people were expected at a series of afternoon rallies denouncing policies they fear will reduce wages, job security and retirement benefits for state employees.

Thousands of protesters, many of them wearing orange jackets and banging red vinyl clubs marked with anti-government slogans, packed the square in front of the Seoul City Hall in one of the earlier rallies focused on criticizing government plans to revise the public pension system. Dozens of police buses were positioned in streets nearby.

‘We are out to prove that those who are now in power will be unable to keep it if they keep stomping on workers’ rights,’ KCTU President Han Sang-goon said at the rally, criticizing the conservative government of the President Park Geun-hye.

Another large rally was expected in the evening when the unionized workers plan to join groups supporting the relatives of the ferry disaster victims.

Dozens were injured last Saturday in a clash between police and demonstrators calling for a new investigation into the government’s response to the sinking.

A total of 304 people, most of them schoolchildren, died when the ferry Sewol sank off South Korea’s southwest coast on 16 April 2014.

Prosecutors blamed negligence by crew members, excessive cargo and improper storage for the sinking, along with slow rescue efforts.  Relatives of the victims claim the investigation was insufficient because they believe high-level authorities weren’t held accountable.

They have called for the establishment of an independent committee to look more deeply into the alleged official incompetence and corruption they believe might have contributed to the sinking and high death toll.