Presidential Shipbuilding United Before Sale... "6 Years of No-Negotiation Wage and Collective Bargaining"

Resolution for Labor-Management Win-Win ... Industry's First Annual Agreement Since 2015
Turned Profitable Since 2018 ... Securing Orders Through Next Year

On the 22nd, labor and management representatives at Daesun Shipbuilding Busan Yeongdo Shipyard signed a non-negotiated collective bargaining agreement and shouted slogans for labor-management coexistence.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] Daesun Shipbuilding has achieved six consecutive years of no-strike collective bargaining agreements. Daesun Shipbuilding, which is currently pursuing resale, has maintained a labor-management win-win resolution without disputes for six years, a first in the industry.

On the 23rd, Daesun Shipbuilding announced that it signed a wage collective bargaining agreement on the 22nd at its headquarters in Yeongdo, Busan, which includes a wage freeze for 2020. It is an unprecedented case in the shipbuilding industry to conclude agreements for six consecutive years without negotiations since 2015.

Since entering a voluntary agreement in 2010, Daesun Shipbuilding's labor and management have continued flexible restructuring. They reduced manpower through natural attrition without artificial workforce restructuring, secured liquidity through asset sales, and shared pain by agreeing on wage returns and cost reduction efforts.

Thanks to these efforts, the company escaped operating losses and recorded KRW 302 billion in sales and KRW 4.2 billion in operating profit in 2018, marking its first operating profit in eight years since the voluntary agreement.

Last year, it achieved KRW 322.1 billion in sales and KRW 11.3 billion in operating profit, and the first half of this year also showed operating profit, making it likely to achieve operating profits for three consecutive years by the end of the year.

The significance of Daesun Shipbuilding's performance rebound and resale push is considerable. Without artificial restructuring, labor and management cooperated to voluntarily normalize management. It succeeded in improving its business structure by pursuing a specialization strategy in niche ship types that only Daesun Shipbuilding can build, moving away from fiercely competitive ship types.

Regarding Daesun Shipbuilding’s representative specialized business, coastal passenger ship construction, it delivered two ships consecutively in June and held a launching ceremony. So far, Daesun Shipbuilding completed the hull design development of coastal passenger ships as a Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy national project and participated in the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries’ coastal passenger ship modernization project, winning orders for four out of five ships. It has already successfully delivered three ships, establishing itself as a specialized coastal passenger shipyard.

Despite the global mid-sized shipbuilding market slump caused by COVID-19 and the sharp decline in ship orders, Daesun Shipbuilding steadily secured projects such as chemical product carriers and feeder container ships in the first half of this year, securing work through next year.

A Daesun Shipbuilding official said, “We are changing our management structure through ship type specialization and labor-management cooperation while working on the company sale, so we expect success soon.” Attention is focused on whether Daesun Shipbuilding, which succeeded in performance rebound, will find a new owner ahead of other mid-sized shipbuilders.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.