Trade Association "Greatly Welcomes HMM Labor-Management Collective Bargaining Agreement Settlement"

The "HMM Land and Sea Labor Unions Joint Emergency Press Conference" was held on the 2nd at the Office and Financial Labor Union meeting room in Jung-gu, Seoul. Participants are holding hands and taking a commemorative photo. From the left: Jeon Jeong-geun, Chairman of the Sea Labor Union; Kim Jin-man, Chairman of the Land Labor Union; Lee Jae-jin, Chairman of the Office and Financial Labor Union; Kim Doo-young, Chairman of the National Maritime Labor Union Council. Photo by Moon Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heung-soon] The Korea International Trade Association (KITA) announced on the 2nd that it "greatly welcomes" the resolution of the wage and collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the labor and management of HMM, the country's largest deep-sea container shipping company, on behalf of the trade industry.

Following the news of the CBA resolution at HMM on the morning of the same day, KITA stated, "Export-oriented small and medium-sized enterprises have been watching the somewhat unstable wage negotiation process over the past few months with concern, fearing that difficulties in import and export logistics might worsen," and evaluated, "With the resolution of the negotiations, they have regained the will and confidence to overcome the import and export logistics crisis."

KITA also expressed, "We are confident that this resolution will greatly contribute to fostering a win-win atmosphere where both carriers and shippers join forces to overcome the crisis," and added, "On behalf of the trade industry, we express our gratitude to the labor and management of HMM who made efforts based on mutual understanding and concession, and we look forward to HMM leading the way in overcoming the current logistics crisis and economic recovery through exports together with our trade industry."

According to HMM, HMM President Bae Jae-hoon, Kim Jin-man, Chairman of the Land Labor Union, and Jeon Jeong-geun, Chairman of the Maritime Labor Union, along with other labor and management representatives, signed the final wage agreement on the morning of the same day at HMM headquarters in Jongno-gu, Seoul. The agreement includes a 7.9% wage increase and payment of 650% in encouragement and incentive bonuses. This comes 77 days after the start of the CBA negotiations in June.

The wage increase will be applied retroactively from January 1 of this year, and the encouragement and productivity incentive bonuses will be paid within the year. Additionally, labor and management agreed to form a jointly participated task force (TF) to work on restoring wage competitiveness and establishing a performance bonus system.

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