As the walkout of the Korean Railway Workers Union(KRWU) prolongs and the management puts in a large number of replacement workers, a series of safety accidents take place at the railways and subways.
Critics say that the Korea Railroad Corporation(Korail) has put in an unreasonably high number of replacement workers to increase the train operation rate. Concerns are growing that the frequent occurrence of safety accidents may lead to a major disaster.
The KRWU has been staging the walkout for 21 days as of October 17. Even though the industrial action enters into its 4th week, the train operation rate remains at the level of 85% in comparison with the normal day operation rate. Since replacement workers were put in to substitute the striking workers, a series of safety accidents occurred during the service operation of the high-speed KTX trains and subways in Seoul.
Seven safety accidents caused by the mistakes of replacement workers were already confirmed. In the morning of October 17, a subway train came to a sudden halt due to the failure in exit-door sign lights at the Jongro 3-ga station in Seoul bound for Incheon. The train was operated by a soldier who was put in as a replacement worker.
'The Civil Society Joint Action To Strengthen the Public Nature and To Resist the Introduction of the Performance-based Wage System in Public Sector' held a news briefing in front of the Korail's Seoul regional headoffice, denouncing that Korail was putting in an unreasonably high number of replacement workers in order to maintain the higher train service operation rate and this was only to mitigate the impact of the railway strike, neglecting the safety of the public.
Korail posted a recruitment notice for replacement workers on September 30 and hired 796 replacement workers on October 11. These replacement workers were immediately allocated at the work sites after a few days of training. Korail has more plans to hire additional replacement workers from 500 up to 2,000. A Korail official said that replacement workers were put in the operation after enough training in accordance with the related law and Korail plans to put in additional replacement workers until the strike is over.
The KRWU reacted against the Korail's plan, saying that Korail should not waste efforts to mitigate the impact of the strike, but instead it should settle the negotiation over the performance-based wage system in order to prevent bigger accidents from occurring in advance.
There has been also a criticism that during the strike period Korail tried to maintain the operation rate for the more profitable train service such as the high speed KTX trains, while maintaining a reduced operation rate of ordinary and express train services which are currently run in red ink. The Labor Relations Commission decided the train operation rate to maintain the essential services during the industrial dispute as follows: KTX(56.9%), express train(59.5%), semi-express train(63.0%), commuters train(62.5%) and greater area subways(63.0%).
However, as of noon on October 17, the KTX operation rate was 100% and the operation rate of subway trains was 94.4% in comparison with the ordinary day operation rates, while the express and semi-express trains showed the operation rates of 63.6% and 63.1% respectively.
KTWU general secretary Jeon Chang-hoon criticized that during the strike period Korail used tricks to maintain the operation revenue with higher operation rates for the profitable KTX and subway trains which are in black. However, Korail explained that it only increased the operation rate to reduce the public inconveniences at the lowest. It also insisted that Korail was not seeking the higher profitability, because it would file a damage compensation claim against the KTWU for the loss of operation revenue due to the strike.
reported by Yoon Ja-eun
edited in English by Kim Sung-jin
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