[Editorial] Labor Unionists Should Return to Dialogue

A strike at LG Caltex Oil Corp. has brought operations to a stop for the first time in the company’s 37-year history. Subway workers’ unions in four cities, including Seoul and Incheon, said they will walk off the job starting today. The damages that the stoppage would immediately cause worry us. However, what we are more worried about are whether the economy and public livelihood, both already enveloped in crisis, can endure the walk-outs’ social rippling effects: the crisis of energy and an upset in the transport network.

Demands for wage hikes and improved working conditions are generally just. However, labor unions are the major component of society and the main player in the economy. Thus, they should refrain themselves from a strike that would bring severe social repercussions and turn around labor-management relations as well as the economy. In this respect, the strike as a way to press excessive demands makes little sense. What is more, much of the public would not be supportive when they go on a strike, despite a 15-day cool-off period leading up to an ex officio arbitration.

LG Caltex labor unionists demand wage increases, funds for regional development, and an improvement in working conditions for temporary workers. Among them, regional development funds and the issue of temporary workers are not something a trade union can negotiate over with management. Also, demand for wage increases hardly qualifies as an urgent issue that requires an illegal strike. Even the labor union’s own data indicates that LG Caltex is a typical high income workplace with an average yearly salary of 60 million won for a worker who has been employed at the company for 10 consecutive years.

If management at the big cities’ subway systems accepts demands for wage and staff increases pressed by labor unions, it will cause an increase in wage bills and in turn snowball deficits and debt. Local governments have borrowed more than 13 trillion won to run subway systems. It will be the public that will eventually foot the bills.

Wage hikes that exceed productivity and hard-line labor disputes have long been a major factor in capital flight. It is our reality that with a mere 12 percent unionization rate, labor unions have a chokehold on the economy. Now is the time labor union leaders were responsible in kind. They should have a larger picture in order to understand that their year-round, hard-line struggle is pushing the entire economy into a crisis and in turn, victimizing the workers. They should return to dialogue.