SEOUL- South Korea’s government met a striking truckers’ union for the first talks of a five-day nationwide walkout, as supply chain glitches worsen and concrete runs out at building sites.
The government, which estimates daily losses at about 300 billion won ($224 million) as supplies of cement and fuel for gas stations run short, raised its warning of cargo transport disruption to the highest level.
But the union held out little prospect of a breakthrough in the second major strike within less than six months, as thousands of truckers demand better pay and working conditions.
“The transport ministry’s position is already set, and there is no room for negotiations, so this meeting is not a negotiation … the content is a demand for an unconditional return to work,” the union said in a statement on Sunday.
The strike is disrupting industrial activity at a time when Asia’s fourth-largest economy, which is dependent on exports, faces lower-than-expected growth next year, with the central bank having downgraded its 2023 forecast to 1.7 percent from 2.1 percent.
“We need to establish a rule of law between labor and management,” President Yoon Suk-yeol Yoon said on Monday, according to the presidential office.
Yoon, who has criticized the strike as taking the nation’s logistics “hostage” in the face of an economic crisis, will hold a cabinet meeting on Tuesday to consider a ‘work force order’ for truckers to return to their jobs, his office said.
The law allows the government to issue such an order during a serious transport disruption, and failure to comply can be punished with up to three years in jail, or a fine of up to 30 million won ($22,550).
Strike organizer the Cargo Truckers Solidarity Union (CTSU) has criticized the government for being unwilling to expand a minimum-pay system beyond a further three years, instead of meeting union demands to make it permanent and widen its scope.
Container traffic at ports was 21 percent of normal levels on Monday, the transport ministry said, against Friday’s figure of 49 percent.
The steel industry, including POSCO and Hyundai Steel, saw shipments more than halve to 22,000 tons on Sunday, down from the usual average of 46,000 tons, the transport ministry said.
Some gas stations could run out of gasoline and kerosene as early as this week, especially in large cities, despite supplies secured ahead of the strike.
That is because about 70 percent to 80 percent of truckers for major refiners, such as SK Innovation’s SK Energy and S-Oil Corp, are union members on strike.
