A major South Korean umbrella union has come face-to-face with the police, after it pushed ahead with a rally to protest revisions to labor laws, despite the Seoul city government's ban as a COVID-19 preventive measure.

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions(KCTU) initially planned dozens of rallies with some one-thousand members participating near the National Assembly in Yeouido on Friday.

But after the police dispatched forces and restricted entry to the area, ordering the union to disperse, the members began one-person pickets on nearby roads. One of the protesters was arrested at the scene after assaulting a police officer.

Earlier, the Seoul Metropolitan Government banned all rallies carried out by the umbrella union in the area until December 9, to which the KCTU accused Seoul City of attempting to redirect blame for its failure to prevent infection clusters.

The umbrella union opposes the law revision to ratify key International Labor Organization(ILO) conventions, which includes a clause that prohibits laborers from occupying key facilities at the workplace when staging a strike.

The KCTU is also calling for the passage of three bills that apply labor laws to businesses with less than five employees, guarantee temporary workers the right to form a union and punish employers responsible for workplace disasters.