Subway Lines 1-9 May Stop... Seoul Metro Union Approves General Strike
Approval Rate at 80%... Press Conference Scheduled on the 7th to Announce Whether to Proceed with the Strike
[Asia Economy Reporter Koo Eun-mo] The labor union of Seoul Metro, which operates subway lines 1 to 9 in Seoul, has announced a strike.
According to the coalition of the two major labor unions of Seoul Metro on the 4th, an anonymous vote conducted among union members from the 1st of this month until that day resulted in a strike proposal being approved with a 79.7% approval rate (70.8% of total membership). Out of 13,831 total union members, 12,292 voted, with 9,793 in favor.
The two major unions, the Seoul Metro Labor Union and the Integrated Union, formed a coalition this year and have been negotiating next year's wage collective bargaining with management. However, when management proposed a plan to reduce 1,539 personnel on the 4th of last month, the unions declared a breakdown in negotiations two days later on the 6th and initiated dispute procedures including applying for mediation at the Seoul Regional Labor Relations Commission. Since the labor and management sides failed to narrow their differences at the Regional Labor Relations Commission, the mediation ended on that day.
The two major unions plan to hold a press conference at 10 a.m. on the 7th in front of Seoul City Hall to announce the future schedule. A union official said, "With the end of mediation and the approval of the strike vote, we have secured the legal right to strike," adding, "If the positions of Seoul City and the corporation do not change, a strike will be inevitable soon."
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The proposal presented by management this time is of the same scale as the personnel reduction plan presented during collective bargaining in June last year. At that time, the unions strongly opposed it, causing negotiations to stall for three months until a dramatic agreement was reached on the night of September 13, a day before the scheduled strike, where labor and management agreed not to enforce forced restructuring. The last strike by the Seoul Metro labor union was in 2016.
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