The Seoul city bus labor union is currently conducting a vote on strike action for its members on the 28th. If a majority supports the strike in this vote and the company and labor union do not reach an agreement on wages and collective bargaining by the legal mediation deadline on the 29th, the union may go on strike starting from the first bus on the 30th.
The Seoul city bus union is conducting a vote asking about strike action for 18,082 members of 67 bus company branches starting at 9 a.m. on this day.
The voting will continue until 5 p.m. on this day, and the union expects the results to be announced around 6 p.m.
The Seoul city bus union and management have engaged in nine rounds of negotiations regarding this year's wage bargaining from December last year to April 3 of this year, but they have not reached any significant agreement.
In response, the union held a general meeting of branch chairpersons on the 23rd and resolved to commence strike action starting from the first bus on the 30th.
If the union proceeds with the strike as announced, it will be a strike for the second consecutive year. Previously, the Seoul city bus union also went on strike in March last year, causing 97.6% (7,210) of the 7,382 city buses to stop operating for about 11 hours.
The Seoul city bus union and management are at odds over the scope of ordinary wages. The union argues that bonuses paid bi-monthly should be included in ordinary wages and demands a basic salary increase of 8.2%. They assert that this should follow the Supreme Court's ruling last year, which stated that regular bonuses and other allowances must be included in ordinary wages.
On the other hand, the management claims that accommodating the union's demands would require an additional approximately 170 billion won annually, which is difficult. They point out that the city bus system is already operating under a semi-public system, incurring an annual deficit of 500 billion won, and this additional burden would worsen the situation.