Prolonged Labor Dispute at KB Sonbo... CEO Kim Gi-hwan Struggles to Resolve (Comprehensive)

CEO Kim "Will Have Genuine Dialogue"
Union Demands Fact-Finding... Prolonged Conflict

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Hyung-gil] Kim Ki-hwan, CEO of KB Insurance, who has been facing internal strife due to labor-management conflicts since his inauguration, is struggling to resolve the disputes.

Although CEO Kim has expressed his commitment to increasing manpower and improving the wage peak system, the labor union continues to oppose, citing issues such as overseas investment losses. If the labor-management conflict prolongs, it is expected to inevitably impact Kim's leadership.

According to the insurance industry on the 18th, CEO Kim recently stated in an employee message titled "The Path We Walk Together," "If it helps restore trust between labor and management, I will continue sincere dialogue with the labor union regardless of place or format during my tenure," adding, "I will proactively review manpower reinforcement and improvements to the current wage peak system."

He promised, "After gathering employees' opinions in the first half of the year, I will supplement the personnel system to ensure it operates transparently and fairly," and "We are walking the same path for boosting employee morale, improving working conditions, and fostering a reasonable labor-management culture." Recently, KB Insurance began open recruitment for grade 4 new employees, initiating the manpower increase that CEO Kim pledged.

CEO Kim faced a 'work stoppage' on his first day at work after inauguration but immediately started dialogue with the union. On the 12th, he held a briefing session for labor and management to begin resolving conflicts. He has also been attentive to conducting management performance briefings and related department presentations for labor and management through relevant departments until last month.

However, the KB Insurance branch of the National Office and Financial Services Labor Union recently issued a statement saying, "We requested detailed data and explanations regarding overseas investment losses, but the company has remained silent," and "There has been no fact-finding, expression of regret, or promise to prevent recurrence regarding the incident that triggered this situation," expressing opposition.

The issues that triggered the labor-management conflict are the corporate agency (GA) Frontier branch manager system and overseas investment losses. The union explained that as of November last year, the net income was 198.7 billion KRW, but after reflecting a loss of 58.7 billion KRW in December, the annual net income became 140 billion KRW.

The union claims that the company reflected the loss in performance to avoid paying bonuses, despite promising last year to pay an additional 50% bonus if net income exceeded 180 billion KRW.

They also pointed out that the Frontier branch manager system, which changes branch managers who have been regular employees for over three years into commissioned workers in the form of individual business owners and entrusts them with agencies, is being used as a means of restructuring.

Regarding this, the company maintains that the issue can be resolved through dialogue with the union. A KB Insurance official said, "Since the company has promised to engage in dialogue at any time, we will resolve the issue through labor-management talks."

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