Seoul subway strike begins Friday morning as talks collapse

Seoul Metro workers on subway lines 1 through 8 will launch a full strike starting with Friday’s first trains, a move that may disrupt morning commutes across the capital after overnight talks between the main union and management collapsed. The Seoul Transit Corporation Labor Union, the main union that takes up more than 57 percent of all employees, announced around 3:30 a.m. that final talks with management had broken down. Labor and management held last-minute negotiations on wages and collective bargaining at the company’s headquarters in Seongdong District on Thursday afternoon, but the session recessed after about 40 minutes. The two sides continued working-level talks through the night, yet failed to narrow differences and were unable to resume the main negotiation, leading to the collapse of the talks. Separate negotiations between the company and the two smaller unions are still underway. As of July this year, the main union accounted for 57.4 percent of unionized workers, followed by the No. 2 union at 16.4 percent and the No. 3 union at 12.6 percent.

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