“Civil Servants Dispatched Urgently” ... Changwon Special City Deploys Officials to Sites Amid Environmental Workers’ Strike

City and Environmental Public Workers' Wage and Collective Bargaining Breakdown Leads to Strike Starting July 11

Changwon Special City in Gyeongnam urgently deployed public officials to the field after a strike by environmental workers disrupted the collection of recyclables in the Uichang-gu and Seongsan-gu areas.

Public officials are deployed on site carrying recyclable materials.

Environmental workers in Changwon City, who are members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) General Public Union, have been on strike since the 11th due to a breakdown in this year's wage and collective bargaining negotiations, causing disruptions in the collection of recyclables.

In response, staff from the Resource Circulation Division of Changwon City have been deployed to the Seongsan-gu area, where recycling collection was suspended, to collect recyclables.

On the day when all staff from the Resource Circulation Division were mobilized, collection operations were carried out twice, in the afternoon and at night, collecting about 9 tons of recyclables. Contrary to the union's claim that only recyclables not meeting the separation standards in the Sangnam commercial area were left uncollected, many properly separated recyclables were also found uncollected. Measures were taken to ensure compliance with work regulations in this regard.

Choi Youngsook, Director of the Climate and Environment Bureau, said, "We sincerely apologize to the residents of Uichang-gu and Seongsan-gu for the inconvenience caused by this strike," and added, "We will mobilize every possible means to resolve the inconvenience for citizens as quickly as possible."

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