Members of the National Ready-Mix Concrete Transport Workers' Union hold a rally near Yeouido in Seoul on Monday, calling for collective bargaining and a new wage agreement. [Yonhap]
Members of the National Ready-Mix Concrete Transport Workers' Union hold a rally near Yeouido in Seoul on Monday, calling for collective bargaining and a new wage agreement. [Yonhap]

Tentative 4,200-won rate hike heads to member vote; work stoppage could end Thursday

Semiconductor, housing sites may resume pours, but worker-status dispute lingers

A ready-mix concrete transport strike that has paralyzed construction sites across the greater Seoul area appears likely to end after just three days, following a tentative agreement between manufacturers and drivers on a rate increase. If union members approve the deal, deliveries could resume as early as Wednesday afternoon.

Industry sources said manufacturers and the National Ready-Mix Concrete Transport Workers' Union reached a tentative agreement late Tuesday night to raise the per-delivery transport rate by 4,200 won (about $3), excluding fuel costs. The current rate in the greater Seoul area stands at 75,800 won per delivery. If the deal is ratified, the rate would rise to 80,000 won — an increase of roughly 5.5 percent.

The union had originally demanded an 8,000-won increase per delivery, while manufacturers countered with 2,500 won, citing a slump in construction activity and falling ready-mix shipments. The two sides bridged the wide gap after the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport stepped in to mediate and concerns mounted over spreading disruption at construction sites.

The outcome now hinges on a member vote. The union began polling its roughly 7,600 greater Seoul area members at 9 a.m. Wednesday on whether to accept the tentative agreement. If the vote passes, the union plans to call off the full work stoppage it launched Monday and resume deliveries.

The stoppage involved an estimated 8,000 union members and 11,000 mixer trucks in the greater Seoul area — about 70 percent of all ready-mix transport vehicles in the region. Because the metropolitan area accounts for more than half of national ready-mix volume, major construction sites across Seoul and Gyeonggi Province have been scrambling to reschedule concrete pours and bracing for project delays.

Large industrial sites including Samsung Electronics' Pyeongtaek campus and SK Hynix's Yongin semiconductor cluster were also flagged as potentially vulnerable to supply disruptions. "Ready-mix concrete can't be stored for long, so when deliveries stop, pours at the site are immediately affected," a construction industry official said. "You can manage for a day or two by adjusting the schedule, but if it drags on, both semiconductor and housing sites will feel the strain."

Not all issues have been resolved. Manufacturers are understood to have agreed in principle to unified bargaining covering 14 ready-mix transport union branches in the greater Seoul area. However, the question of whether drivers should be recognized as employees under labor law was not substantively addressed at the negotiating table.

Ready-mix transport drivers have traditionally been classified as self-employed special-category workers. The union has argued that manufacturers must bargain in good faith, pointing to a court ruling in February that recognized the drivers' status as workers under the Trade Union Act. Manufacturers maintain that the drivers are independent contractors, raising the prospect of renewed conflict when full collective bargaining resumes.

Within the manufacturing sector, there is growing criticism that the annual cycle of transport-rate negotiations and work stoppages has become a structural burden on the ready-mix industry. The average transport fee in the greater Seoul area is understood to have climbed from the low 50,000-won range in 2020 to around 75,000 won last year. With shipment volumes shrinking amid the construction downturn even as transport costs rise, smaller ready-mix producers say their margins are deteriorating.

The union, for its part, argues that adjusting rates to reflect rising prices, vehicle maintenance costs and labor expenses is unavoidable. It has also pushed for unified bargaining, warning that restricting negotiations to individual regional units weakens its collective leverage.

"If this deal passes, we'll avoid an immediate ready-mix crisis, but the worker-status question, unified bargaining and how transport rates are calculated will all remain unresolved," an industry official said. "With construction still in a slump, how manufacturers, drivers and construction companies share the cost burden will keep coming back as a flashpoint."


hong@heraldcorp.com