Seoul Metro labor union reaches last-minute agreement with Seoul Metro

  • 4 years ago
The Seoul Metro Labor Union, which represents workers on the capital's subway lines one through eight, had planned to go on a three-day strike starting today but has fortunately reached a last-minute settlement.
For more details, let's connect to our reporter Kim Bo-kyoung.
Bo-kyoung, do fill us in.
Hi Mark, I'm at City Hall station where lots of people come to transfer lines.
Originally the labor union announced it is going on strike from today until Friday,... but as the talks between Seoul metro and the union were settled an hour ago,... the trains are expected to run normally.
If the negotiations had failed again,... the union would have stopped operating some trains... dropping the operating rate to 65% for lines 1 through 4 and 78% for lines 5 to 8 outside peak hours.
However negotiations were finally settled in the morning right before the strike was scheduled to start at 9 AM after the morning commute.
Giving you some background,... the union had talks with the management of Seoul Metro until late last night, asking them to accept the demands... but eventually the negotiations broke down.
The union strongly demanded an improvement or repeal of the salary peak system.
Seoul Metro adopted the salary peak system three years ago.... which guarantees workers' employment with a lower salary… instead of laying them off.
Seoul Metro was supposed to direct the money secured by lowering employees' salaries to recruit new employees... but according to the union, as those funds ran low,... Seoul Metro cut other workers' salaries.
This is all from me, Back to you Mark.

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