The Seoul City Bus Transportation Business Association, the organization of Seoul city bus operators, said on the 10th that "the union, on top of a lawsuit over ordinary wages worth about 1 trillion won, is also demanding a raise plan this year worth about 500 billion won," adding, "If all of the union's demands are applied, the annual salary of a ninth-step driving employee would rise by 16.39 million won from last year to at least 85.09 million won."
The Seoul City Bus Transportation Business Association, through a position paper released the same day, said it had "previously proposed a 10.32% wage increase to the union" and stated accordingly.
The Seoul city bus union is asking management to set the "standard hours" for calculating ordinary wages at 176 hours and to raise the hourly wage by 7.85%. The association, by contrast, proposed 209 hours.
Standard hours are used to calculate how much the monthly ordinary wage amounts to per hour. The fewer the standard hours, the higher the wage. Accordingly, the union argues for shorter standard hours, while the association argues for longer ones.
The association said, "The amount claimed in lawsuits arising from 2020 to 2025 regarding the standard hours for calculating ordinary wages totals 1.0214 trillion won."
It added, "On top of this, the union is making unreasonable demands that would require 539.4 billion won in expense every year, including a 7.85% hourly wage increase this year (estimated 117.5 billion won annually) and applying 176 hours as the standard hours for calculating ordinary wages, including bonuses (estimated 277.6 billion won annually)."
According to the association, if all of the union's demands are applied, the annual salary of a ninth-step driving employee would be at least 850.9 billion won. As of the end of last year, the annual salary of a ninth-step driving employee was 68.7 million won.
The association also said, "The 209 hours are the standard specified in the '(Revised) Guidelines for Labor-Management on Ordinary Wages' prepared by the Labor Ministry on Feb. 2 last year, after the Supreme Court's en banc ruling."
It added, "If the court finalizes 176 hours, we proposed to pay the back pay additionally, and conversely, if it rules 230 hours, the union should settle by returning the additional amount."
The reason the positions of labor and management for Seoul city buses diverge like this is a recent Supreme Court ruling. Earlier, in the final appeal of an ordinary wage-related lawsuit filed by Dong-A Transportation against management, the Supreme Court quashed and remanded the case to the Seoul High Court only on issues other than the appellate court's recognition of 176 hours per month as the standard hours.
Accordingly, the union's position is that the standard hours have already been finalized at 176 hours. Management, on the other hand, is contesting in the remand trial to change the standard hours to 209 or 230 hours and interprets that the ruling on this part has not been finalized.
The association also stressed, "Busan, Daegu, Incheon and Ulsan already revamped their wage systems to 209 hours last year without separate wage increases and agreed to increases in the 10% range." Other local governments operating the semi-public bus system have already reached agreements similar to the association's position.
Regarding the union's notice that it will strike on the 16th if talks break down, the association said, "We will work closely with the Seoul city government to secure alternative transportation," adding, "We will do our best to ensure that at least some routes and some sections of city buses can operate normally."