Subway Strikes Imminent in Four Major Cities

Odds are increasing that the subway unions in Korea’s four major cities--Seoul, Busan, Incheon and Daegu--will go on strike starting 4 a.m. Wednesday.

The five subway unions--two in Seoul and one in each of the other three cities--held head-to-head talks yesterday afternoon with management in the dispute settlement committee established by the Regional Labor Committee. Yesterday was also the deadline for arbitration, but the parties’ respective positions were quite different going into the meeting, with low chances of compromise.

In the case of Seoul, the Seoul Regional Labor Committee (SRLC) opened a meeting at 2 p.m. with the Seoul Metropolitan Subway Corporation (SMSC), which runs lines 1 through 4, and the Seoul Metropolitan Railway Transit Corporation (SMRTC), which runs lines 5 through 8. However, labor and management failed to reach a compromise on the core issue of the size of the subway workforce.

The SMSC and SMRTC offered a revised proposal that stipulated a 3-percent wage increase, deciding the appropriate number of workers based on an outside survey, and changing working shifts without hiring more people, among other conditions. However, the union was determined not to accept a proposal that does not call for hiring additional personnel.

The labor unions of both corporations are demanding 3,043 and 3,205 additional personnel for the SMSC and SMRTC respectively, and wage increases of 10.5 and 8.1 percent respectively.

The Busan Subway union is confronting the Busan Urban Transit Authority over the request of hiring an additional 2,000 employees, and the Daegu Subway union and management are arguing over the restructuring of that organization. The Incheon Subway union and management have failed to compromise on additional workers and changing work shifts with the advent of a five-day work week.

Hence, to prevent a strike the SRLC is expected to extend the arbitration deadline until Wednesday morning or force a conditional arbitration on key areas such as engine drivers.

SRLC Commissioner Kim Sung-joong said, “No one wants an emergency mediation, but the union’s and management’s opinions are so different that if there is no settlement, I have no choice.”

Starting yesterday at 5 p.m., the unions of the SMSC and SMRTC have engaged in a “regular schedule operation campaign”--stopping for the scheduled 30 seconds at each subway station--as part of their legal struggle before the planned strike.