'Civil servants are citizens too': 14,000 rally in Seoul over wages, pensions and labor rights

Participants chant slogans at the Civil Servants and Teachers Workers' Rally held on Sejongno in front of Sungnyemun in Seoul on Saturday. [Yonhap]

Five civil servant and teacher groups converge at Sungnyemun, demand 7.1% pay rise for 2027

Unions call for end to pension income gap after retirement, criticize forced election duty

Teachers, police, postal workers unite over working conditions

Civil servants and teachers rallied in central Seoul on Saturday, demanding wage increases, an end to the pension income gap after retirement and guarantees of basic political rights. The groups also called for improved working conditions across their respective fields, citing the concentration of local election duties on lower-ranking civil servants and the excessive workloads and complaints faced by teachers, police officers and postal workers.

The Joint Struggle Committee for Civil Servants' and Teachers' Livelihood Rights held the "7·11 Civil Servants and Teachers Workers' Rally" Saturday afternoon on a road near Sungnyemun in Jung-gu, Seoul. Five organizations participated in the committee: the Korean Government Employees' Union, the Federation of Korean Government Employees' Unions, the Korean Teachers and Education Workers' Union, the Police Officers' Workplace Council and the National Democratic Postal Workers' Union. The rally had been registered for up to 20,000 participants, and organizers estimated about 14,000 people attended.

Participants braved temperatures exceeding 30 degrees Celsius, holding signs that read "My bank balance is eating away at my sense of duty," "Civil servants are citizens too — guarantee our political rights" and "Pension payments from the day we retire." They chanted slogans including "Guarantee civil servants' right to a livelihood" and "Make civil servant wages realistic."

The committee's central demand is a 7.1 percent wage increase for civil servants in 2027. Labor groups representing civil servants have also brought the same demand to the Civil Servant Remuneration Committee, which began its deliberations on June 30, along with calls to abolish the overtime pay reduction rate, raise position allowances for Grade 6 and below, and increase meal allowances and seniority bonuses.

Lee Hae-jun, chairman of the Korean Government Employees' Union, said in his keynote address that he wanted to offer words of comfort to colleagues "who were hurt and suffered through the work of the June 3 local elections," adding that the union would "fight to change an election system that unilaterally shifts responsibility and hardship onto lower-ranking civil servants."

Lee also said, "Whenever the country was in peril, it was always civil servants who stepped forward first," and urged members to "unite and stand together to the end for a 7.1 percent wage increase in 2027."

Labor groups argue that wage increases have failed to keep pace with inflation, eroding real wages and widening the pay gap with the private sector. Analysis presented by labor groups shows that civil servant pay as a proportion of wages at private companies with 100 or more employees fell from 90.5 percent in 2020 to 83.9 percent in 2024.

The practice of deploying lower-ranking local government employees to handle election administration also drew criticism. Kim Woo-jeong, secretary-general of the Imsil-gun Civil Servants' Union under the Federation of Korean Government Employees' Unions, said, "Didn't they dump all manner of election problems on us and forcibly mobilize us for a pittance that didn't even meet the minimum hourly wage?"

Kim added that a pre-sale price for an apartment in a nearby city stands at 600 million won ($399,000), and that even saving every won of one's salary without spending a cent, it would take more than 17 years to afford one — an illustration, he said, of how low wages make it nearly impossible to cover housing and living costs.

Kong Ju-seok, chairman of the Federation of Korean Government Employees' Unions, said the pension income gap after retirement affected more than 9,000 people through last year, 4,100 people this year and would affect 6,800 people next year, including teachers.

The civil servants union warns that if the current system remains unchanged, the gap between retirement and the start of pension payments — currently up to two years — will grow to three years by the end of this year, and the number of people affected could approach 100,000 by 2030. Labor groups are calling for separate income-protection measures such as an extended retirement age, rehiring schemes or a bridge pension.

Kong also raised the issue of work-related overexertion, saying 139 civil servants had died on duty from cardiovascular disease directly linked to overwork. "You could be next," he said.

Police officers, teachers and postal workers also called for improvements to working conditions in their respective fields. Min Gwan-gi, chairman of the Police Officers' Workplace Council, said "the reality facing police officers is devastating" and strongly urged the establishment of a police labor union "so that officers can exercise their rights as workers under the law, not just in name."

Under current law, police officers may form workplace councils but are not granted the collective bargaining or collective action rights available to general civil servant unions. The Police Officers' Workplace Council maintains that the legal framework must be reformed to allow the establishment of a union so that officers can negotiate over hazardous duties, shift work and chronic understaffing.

Park Young-hwan, chairman of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers' Union, said that while no one would condone a violent resolution, "it is clear that the education field has reached a breaking point," and demanded action on malicious complaints and indiscriminate child abuse reports filed against teachers.

Meanwhile, the Joint Struggle Committee said it plans to continue pressing for a 2027 wage increase and improvements to the allowance system through the Civil Servant Remuneration Committee deliberations, while sustaining joint action to close the pension income gap and expand basic labor rights.

hong@heraldcorp.com