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| Oil prices are seen at a gas station in Seoul, Tuesday. Yonhap |
By Park Jae-hyuk
GS Caltex is following in the footsteps of its rival, Hyundai Oilbank, by announcing a plan to pay hefty bonuses to its employees, as a result of its solid earnings last year, according to industry officials, Wednesday.
The oil refiner's latest decision sparked fierce public criticism, given that its achievement has been attributed mainly to the global oil price hike, rather than its employees' hard work.
Last Friday, GS Caltex announced to its employees that performance-based bonuses equivalent to 50 percent of their annual basic wages will be paid to them on Jan. 27. The company had given its employees the same amount in bonuses last year.
Although GS Caltex has yet to announce its fourth-quarter earnings, its operating profit during the first three quarters of last year reached 4.03 trillion won ($3.3 billion), up 186 percent from a year earlier.
Hyundai Oilbank also told its employees late last year that performance-based bonuses equivalent to 1,000 percent of their monthly basic wages would be given to them. Its performance-based bonus last year was equivalent to 600 percent of the monthly basic wages of each employee.
The oil refiner also enjoyed benefits from the international oil price hike last year, posting 2.7 trillion won in operating profit during the first three quarters of last year, up 226 percent from the previous year.
Industry officials expect SK Innovation and S-Oil to pay similar or larger bonuses to their employees in the near future.
Earlier this year, SK Innovation had been rumored to pay performance-based bonuses equivalent to 2,000 percent of annual basic wages, although its workers denied the rumor on internet forums.
Given that its union has reportedly asked management to give at least 1,500 percent of annual basic wages, the company's performance-based bonus this year is expected to be fixed somewhere between 1,000 percent and 1,500 percent of each employee's annual basic wage, depending on the performance of its money-losing battery manufacturing subsidiary, SK On.
S-Oil, which has paid the largest amount of performance-based bonuses every year among the four largest oil refiners in Korea, is also expected to offer the biggest bonuses again this year.
Against this backdrop, the public has urged the government to force oil refiners to pay taxes on their windfall gains from the global oil price hike.
Rep. Lee Jae-myung, chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, also supported the public's request, mentioning the soaring heating costs. The lawmaker suggested on Wednesday that the oil refiners should pay certain amounts of money to help underprivileged people suffering severely from the energy price hike.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy also seeks to revise a law in order to disclose the wholesale price of gasoline to consumers, despite opposition from oil refiners. The ministry explained that the revision is intended to remove suspicions that oil refiners and gas stations took profits by not reflecting the government's oil tax cut in their product pricing.
