Seoul's city bus union sets 9 pm Tuesday deadline for strike
Representatives of Seoul's city bus companies and unionized bus workers shake hands before holding wage negotiations at the Seoul Regional Labor Relations Commission, Tuesday. Yonhap
Seoul's unionized city bus workers said Tuesday that they will continue negotiations only until 9 p.m. and launch a general strike the following morning if the talks fail.
Unionized city bus workers and bus companies have been locked in a dispute over how to calculate the hourly wage rate after including regular bonuses in ordinary wages.
The union has called for calculating ordinary wages based on 176 monthly work hours and raising wages by 7.85 percent. However, bus companies and the Seoul city government have rejected the demand, saying the proposed calculation would effectively result in a wage increase of approximately 16 percent.
The union is threatening to stage a general strike, starting with the first buses at 4 a.m. on Wednesday if no agreement is reached by 9 p.m. Tuesday.
Yoo Jae-ho, deputy secretary-general of the Seoul Bus Workers' Union, said in a press briefing that the union is not insisting on a 7.85 percent wage increase and is willing to reach an agreement if the 176 monthly work hour standard is recognized.
"Some other regions have implemented wage increases of over 5 percent so we can use that as a benchmark to narrow the gap. We are not going on strike simply because we cannot lower the rate by even 0.1 percentage point," Yoo said.
He also refuted the management's claim that accepting the union's demands would raise bus drivers' annual salaries to 85 million won ($62,500), saying their average annual salary is estimated at 59 million won this year.
City buses in Seoul and other big cities nationwide are operated under a semi-public management system, in which bus companies are in charge of bus operations and the municipal governments cover their losses.
The Seoul city government estimates that a 1 percent wage increase would result in approximately 14 billion won in additional annual costs and that accepting all of the union's demands could double the city bus system's annual deficit to about 1 trillion won.