Kim Hyun-bin began his journalism career at Arirang TV from 2012 to 2017, specializing in defense, foreign affairs and the economy. In 2018, he joined The Korea Times, covering society and business, and is currently responsible for embassy affairs.
Bus drivers threaten to stage nationwide strike in May
The Korean Automobile and Transport Workers' Federation holds a representative conference in Seoul to discuss settlement conditions for its possible strike in May, Tuesday. Yonhap
By Kim Hyun-bin
By Kim Hyun-bin
The Korean Automobile and Transport Workers' Federation threatened to hold a nationwide bus driver strike in May, if the government does not compensate for estimated lost income resulting from implementation of the 52-hour work week system in July.
Bus drivers claim that the 52-hour work week will drastically reduce their monthly paycheck.
The federation plans to release their strike settlement conditions on April 29, and if the conditions are not met, bus drivers plan to hold a nationwide strike in mid-May.
The federation is by far the largest bus driver union in the country with over 83,000 members.
“There have been bus strikes in parts of the country before, but it is unprecedented to have a whole federation conducting a nationwide strike,” an official from the Ministry of Employment and Labor said.
The federation claims the government's 52-hour work week restriction will drastically reduce their pay. The restriction is scheduled to be enforced on July 1, and will apply to bus companies that have more than 300 employees. Initially, the restriction did not apply to bus companies, however, last year a revision was made to the labor law to include them.
According to the Korea Research Institute of Transportation Industries, an average monthly paycheck for a bus driver is 3.54 million won ($3,130), however, the base pay is only 49 percent of the total and the rest consists of overtime pay.
“Once the 52-hour work week is enforced bus drivers monthly pay will decrease 10 to 20 percent,” an official from the federation said. “At the minimum, the company needs to preserve our pay.”
Bus companies say they can't afford to preserve drivers' wages and at the same time hire more employees to fill the workforce.
“Most of the bus companies are getting assistance from local government already. In addition, we need to deal with the recent minimum wage hike and have to employ more workers due to the 52-hour work restriction, we will not be able to cover the costs,” a senior executive at a Gyeonggi Province bus company said.
Both unions and management are requesting assistance from the government for budget support.
“To normalize operation at bus companies the government needs to compensate for the losses from the 52-hour work week, elderly and bus transfer discounts,” the federation said.
Many experts predict there will be traffic chaos when the nationwide bus strike begins, which will become a hefty burden on students and low-income families. They say deploying government charter buses and extension of subway operations will be hardly enough to cover for the strike.