The railway union has put off the general strike it had warned would start at 9 a.m. on the 23rd.
The railway union, the No. 1 union at KORAIL, said around midnight that it would postpone the strike.
Initially, the union said it would "fight for the union's fate" and had warned of a general strike involving 12,000 members. This raised concerns about a year-end "railway chaos."
The union's decision to put off the strike was due to progress with KORAIL on a plan to raise performance bonuses. KORAIL and the union are said to have tentatively agreed to gradually raise, starting next year, the performance bonus standard, which currently applies 80% of base pay.
Whether KORAIL will raise performance bonuses will be finalized at the Public Institution Management Committee meeting at 2 p.m. the same day. The railway union plans to fully withdraw the strike and run all trains normally if the committee implements the tentative agreement.
The railway management and labor have repeatedly stalled this year over performance bonuses in wage and collective bargaining talks. The union argued the payment standard should be revised, saying it receives lower performance bonuses than other institutions. Other institutions receive performance bonuses equal to 100% of base pay, but only KORAIL applies 80%.
KORAIL's performance bonus standard was lowered because it failed to properly carry out the government's past directive to revamp the pay structure at public institutions. At the time, the government pushed to include a 300% bonus in base pay for public institutions, but only KORAIL submitted the relevant documents later than the deadline set by the government.
The government regarded this as a serious defect and imposed a penalty by setting the performance bonus at 80% of base pay, not 100%.