The Seoul city bus labor union approved a strike in a vote held for union members on the 28th. The union noted that they would strike if no agreement is reached between the labor and management by the first bus operation on the 30th. Accordingly, the city of Seoul plans to activate emergency transportation measures in the event of a strike.
On this day, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., 15,941 union members participated in the strike vote, and 15,359 of them (96.3%) stated they supported the strike. Among all union members (18,082), 88.2% participated in the vote, and the support rate among all union members is 84.9%.
The union plans to strike starting from the 30th if wage negotiations with the city of Seoul fail to reach a conclusion. Earlier, the labor and management of the Seoul city buses filed for mediation with the Labor Relations Commission on the 14th, and the mediation deadline is the 29th.
The labor and management of the Seoul city buses are showing differences over the scope of regular wages. The union claims that the bonuses, which were paid bi-monthly, should be included in the regular wages and that the base salary should be increased by 8.2%. They argue that they should follow the recent Supreme Court ruling that stated various allowances, including regular bonuses, should be included in regular wages.
In contrast, the management stated that accommodating the union's demands would require an additional 170 billion won annually, which would be difficult. They explained that the city buses are already operating under a semi-public system, leading to annual losses of 500 billion won, thus increasing this burden.
The city of Seoul announced that they have established emergency transportation measures in preparation for the union's strike.
First, the subway will increase total operations by 173 times on the day. The major congestion times for commuting will be extended by one hour from the current schedule, and the last subway train will operate until 2 a.m. the next day.
Additionally, free shuttle buses will operate in the 25 autonomous districts of Seoul. It is planned to immediately deploy over 500 buses to areas where village buses do not operate among the routes where city bus services will be suspended.
Yeojangkwon, the director of the Seoul Transportation Department, said, "We will do our best to prepare emergency transportation measures to minimize inconvenience to citizens in case of an emergency."