Pilots on Strike

Government may intervene in Korean Air pilot walkout
Korea Herald

The government threatened to intervene to end the strike by Korean Air Co. pilots that grounded 63 percent of the carrier's scheduled flights yesterday.

Unionized pilots at the nation's largest airline began their strike on Thursday, demanding pay increases and improvements to working conditions. It's feared that nearly 70 percent of flights will be canceled today dealing a serious blow to the nation's major exporters and travel industry.

"The government will begin procedures to invoke emergency arbitration if we believe that talks between the management and workers will completely collapse," Labor Minister Kim Dae-hwan said at a news briefing. If the ministry exercises this right, pilots will be banned from taking any collective action during a 30-day cooling period. Despite Kim's warning, the management and the unionized pilots failed to narrow their differences during afternoon negotiations yesterday. The two sides agreed to meet again today.

"Daily financial losses incurred by the national economy are estimated to be 70 billion won," Construction and Transportation Minister Choo Byung-jik said during a policy consultation meeting between the government and the ruling Uri Party earlier in the day.

"If we don't resolve this issue expediently, the economic damage will snowball into a problem on a much 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. The Construction and Transportation Ministry has pushed for the right to be invoked since Thursday. The Labor Ministry had formerly expressed reluctance toward it, responding that the "arbitration right should be exercised only after there have been full negotiations between both parties."

The management and the pilots held another round of talks in the afternoon upon the management's request. The unionized pilots softened a little, offering to drop previous demands for a wage increase of 6.5 percent, to 4.5 percent, while keeping the 50 percent bonus raise demand. However, the management refused to accept the change, and stuck to its own bottom line offer - a 2.5 percent wage increase plus the 50 percent bonus increase.
Korea Herald
By Park Jung-youn