Seoul City Bus Labor and Management Resume Official Negotiations After Three Months

Negotiations Break Down Over "Ordinary Wage Dispute"
Wage Structure Reform and Other Key Issues Remain Deadlocked

After a breakdown in negotiations due to disputes over ordinary wages, labor and management for Seoul city buses will officially resume talks after about three months.

According to the Seoul City Bus Labor Union on the 4th, the union and the management, represented by the Seoul City Bus Transportation Business Association, will hold a Central Labor-Management Negotiation Committee meeting at 4 p.m. on the 5th at the Jamsil Transportation Center.

On the 30th of last month, the labor-management negotiations for Seoul city buses broke down, leading to a legal strike. The photo shows a bus stop in downtown Seoul. 2025.05.07 Photo by Dongju Yoon

This will be the first official negotiation in about three months since informal talks broke down on May 28. Since then, labor and management have only maintained contact at the working-level.

Although official negotiations are resuming, the two sides remain at odds over the key issue of ordinary wages. The union has argued that, based on the Supreme Court ruling, wages that must be recalculated and paid are not subject to negotiation. On the other hand, the business association and the Seoul Metropolitan Government maintain that, given the broader scope of ordinary wages and the resulting sharp increase in labor costs, the wage structure should be revised by including bonuses in the base salary.

The union is emphasizing the Ministry of Employment and Labor's stance on ordinary wages. On the 6th of last month, the Seoul Regional Employment and Labor Office accepted the union's wage arrears complaint against three bus companies and ordered them to pay the difference in allowances for February and March, calculated by including regular bonuses and holiday allowances in the ordinary wage. The business association has filed an objection to this order.

In a statement released that day, the union said, "Despite the Ministry of Labor's repeated corrective orders, the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the business association continue to ignore them and are unfairly demanding that we forgo the wage increases resulting from including bonuses and holiday allowances in the ordinary wage," adding, "We demand that the issue of ordinary wages be left to the Ministry of Labor's decision and that both parties sincerely engage in negotiations on the original collective bargaining agenda."

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