Government considers action

Government considers action against walkout by KAL pilots

The government and the ruling Uri Party said yesterday they are actively considering invoking emergency rights to break up the strike by Korean Air pilots as it dragged into a third day, grounding nearly 63 percent of the carrier's 399 scheduled flights.
Business associations, including the Federation of Korean Industries and Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, also strongly urged government intervension.

High-ranking government officials and Uri lawmakers held a meeting at which they raised the possibility of invoking arbitration to end the strike.

"The daily financial losses incurred by the national economy are estimated to be 70 billion won," Construction and Transportation Minister Choo Byung-jik told the meeting.

"If we don't resolve this issue expediently, economic damage will snowball to a larger scale, dealing a serious blow to the nation's export businesses," he added.

Uri lawmaker Won Hye-young pledged efforts by the ruling party to foster dialogue between the management and the pilots. "However we would give serious considerations to taking emergency measures," Won added, referring to the arbitration right policy.

The Construction and Transportation Ministry has pushed for invoking of the right since Thursday. This would force the pilots back to work and also ban them from taking any form of collective action for 30 days.

However, the Labor Ministry expressed reluctance, saying the "arbitration right should be exercised only after there has been full negotiations between both parties."

"The current situation does not call for it yet - we still need to monitor how the situation develops," said a ministry official.

The walk-out by the pilots halted 54 of Korean Air's 157 international passenger flights and 23 of 30 cargo flights yesterday alone, disrupting the nation's export deliveries and causing massive air transportation holdups.

Korean Air, the nation's largest air carrier, is responsible for 48.1 percent of the nation's air cargo, 40.6 percent of international passenger flights, and 65.2 percent of domestic passenger flights, according to a government report.

Korean Air suffers daily losses averaging 25.3 billion won due to the strike, a company official said.

Local businesses are also calling for immediate action to put a stop to the walk-out, since they are having to scramble to find alternative means to deliver exports on time.

"Most of compact and light-weight products like memory chips and handsets parts are delivered by air," said a Samsung Electronics official, expressing concern that a prolonged strike would have a negative effect on its overseas businesses.

Major business groups also called for the central government to intervene more actively to prevent further damage.

Finance Minister Han Duk-soo acknowledged at a ministers' meeting in Gwacheon that "the strike inflicts serious damages to the national economy, by way of deteriorating local businesses credibility and weakening its competitiveness. The central government needs to come up with action plans."

Unionized pilots are demanding a 6.5 percent wage raise and a 50 percent bonus increase. The management is willing to raise the bonus as requested, but called the 6.5 percent wage increase "outrageous."

The management already has paid an additional bonus of 11.3 million won per pilot earlier this year.

Korean Air captains get annual pay of 120 million won and co-captions 88 million won, a wage level on par with other international air carriers. Korean Air pilots are paid 86 to 88 percent of what Delta Airlines pilots get. On the other hand, they're paid about 5 to 6 percent more than their counterparts at United Airlines and Northwestern Airlines, according to the company report.