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Seoul Transportation Corporation's labor and management reached a dramatic agreement after arguing late last night over a plan for restructuring, including workforce reduction. As the strike that was announced today (14th) has been withdrawn, the subway on the way to work is operating normally.
Reporter Baek Woon reports.
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Labor-management negotiations at the Seoul Transportation Corporation, which had been suspended and resumed for eight and a half hours, were dramatically concluded last night.
In order to overcome the financial crisis, the management and the union opposing the need to reduce the number of 1,500 employees, 10% of the number of employees, were confronted, and the negotiations seemed to break down.
However, negotiations took a sudden turn as the management partially accepted the union's demands.
The two sides agreed abruptly that there would be no forced restructuring due to the financial crisis.
In addition, we decided to form a labor-management consultative body to promote safety enhancement and business normalization, and to propose to the Seoul Metropolitan Government to compensate for the loss of public service costs, such as free transportation of the elderly and infirm, which is a major factor in financial deterioration.
As a deal was reached, the union canceled the strike scheduled for today.
As a result, the Seoul subway is currently operating normally as usual.
This agreement will be finalized through voting by future members.
Although it avoided the trouble on the way to work, the Seoul Transportation Corporation is expected to record a deficit of more than 1 trillion won this year due to a decrease in transportation revenue as it did last year.