Stalled wage and collective bargaining talks between Ulsan's city bus operators and their union have raised fears of a halt to the city's main public transit network. Pictured is a bus stop in front of Ulsan City Hall. [Park Dong-sun]
Stalled wage and collective bargaining talks between Ulsan's city bus operators and their union have raised fears of a halt to the city's main public transit network. Pictured is a bus stop in front of Ulsan City Hall. [Park Dong-sun]

With a strike threatened for Friday after wage and collective bargaining negotiations between Ulsan's city bus companies and their union broke down, the city government has stepped in to help broker a deal and keep the bus network running.

Six city bus operators and the union's lead bargaining team held seven rounds of talks between January and August but remained deadlocked over the scale of wage increases. The union filed for mediation with the regional labor relations commission on Aug. 12.

The union also plans to hold a strike authorization vote on Tuesday, and if the commission's mediation fails, drivers will walk off the job starting with the first buses on Friday. A strike would shut down all 709 buses across 108 routes in Ulsan, threatening a citywide transportation crisis.

To head off that outcome, the city convened a meeting at Ulsan City Hall on Tuesday at which Kim Young-gon, chairman of the Ulsan Bus Transport Business Association, Jeong Yeong-hak, head of the Ulsan Regional Bus Workers' Union, and the city's transportation director were all present.

Mayor Kim Sang-uk personally chaired the meeting and said the disruption residents would face if city buses stopped running "goes beyond imagination," adding that "a strike helps no one — not the public, not the union, not the companies, and not Ulsan."

He then directed Vice Mayor for Administration Seo Nam-gyo to take overall charge and form a labor-management-government council — bringing together the city, bus operators and the union — with instructions to convene as often as needed until the dispute is resolved.

The city established the Ulsan City Bus Labor-Management-Government Council, which held its first session at Ulsan City Hall on Wednesday under Seo's chairmanship. The council discussed a smooth resolution to the wage and collective bargaining talks, ways to address unfunded retirement allowances, and the rationalization of transport cost calculations.

The union is currently demanding a 9 percent increase in the base hourly wage, an extension of the retirement age from 63 to 65, the creation of a retirement reserve fund of 5 billion won ($3.59 million) per company across the six operators — totaling 30 billion won annually — an adjustment of the standard hours used to calculate ordinary wages from 209 to 176 hours per month, payment of overtime allowances, a 5,000-won increase in meal allowances, and the introduction of cashless buses.

Management has offered only a 2 percent increase in the base hourly wage and has rejected the union's other core demands.

The accumulated deficits and unfunded retirement liabilities of Ulsan's city bus operators have become a major issue in their own right. As of 2025, the operators' total retirement allowance debt stands at 111.5 billion won, of which 81.3 billion won — 73 percent of the total — remains unfunded. The industry's combined net capital is negative 86.5 billion won, while total liabilities have reached 162.3 billion won.

The city has provided fiscal support to cover these operating deficits: 80.2 billion won in 2020, 94.2 billion won in 2021, 118.3 billion won in 2022, 117.8 billion won in 2023, 117.6 billion won in 2024, and 140.2 billion won in 2025. This year the figure is expected to reach 151.9 billion won. When performance-based additional support is factored in, fiscal support now covers 99 percent of bus operators' costs.

"Problems that went unresolved for more than a decade have piled up, leaving companies mired in financial difficulty and workers unable to receive even their full retirement allowances," Kim said. "It has become a kind of endless game of hot potato, and the situation has now reached a point where it is hard to resolve all at once."

Kim traces the root of the problem to Ulsan's privately operated bus system and has proposed a shift to public operation — including the possible establishment of a public transit corporation — as the solution. The revised Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act, known as the "yellow envelope law," bars the city from directly intervening in labor-management negotiations, and the city's oversight of private operators is limited. Kim argues that a phased expansion toward a public operating model is therefore necessary.

In case a strike does occur, the city plans to keep running 171 buses on 79 branch, village and neighborhood routes as well as 18 buses on four routes operated by Sewon Co. To ease demand on city buses, the city also plans to lift odd-even vehicle restrictions, encourage the use of company commuter buses, and promote carpooling.


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