Wage talks resume Tuesday, 12 days after last session

Union threatens 120-hour second partial strike from Wednesday

Hot-rolling lines in Pohang, Gwangyang added to strike targets

Further expansion possible from Friday if talks fail

A red traffic light glows at the main gate of Posco's Pohang steelworks on Wednesday, as the Federation of Korean Trade Unions' metal workers' union at Posco carries out a partial strike. [Yonhap]
A red traffic light glows at the main gate of Posco's Pohang steelworks on Wednesday, as the Federation of Korean Trade Unions' metal workers' union at Posco carries out a partial strike. [Yonhap]

Posco's management and union, locked in the steelmaker's first-ever strike, will return to the negotiating table Tuesday — 12 days after their last formal session. The talks come just one day before the union is set to launch a 120-hour second partial strike targeting hot-rolling mills, the backbone of steel production, making the outcome a pivotal test of whether the labor dispute will escalate further.

According to the steel industry, the two sides will resume wage and collective bargaining agreement negotiations at Posco's headquarters in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, at 2 p.m. Tuesday. It will be their first formal meeting since Sept. 3.

The talks come just one day before the union's second partial strike is set to begin. The dispute committee of the Posco labor union, affiliated with the Federation of Korean Trade Unions' metal workers' federation, issued "Dispute Committee Directive No. 9" Monday, announcing a 120-hour second partial strike running from 7 a.m. Wednesday to 7 a.m. Sept. 21.

Notably, the strike's scope has been expanded to cover major hot-rolling production lines. Workers in operations and maintenance at the No. 2 hot-rolling mill at Pohang steelworks and the No. 4 hot-rolling mill at Gwangyang steelworks, along with union members assigned there, will walk off the job. Heating furnace operators and maintenance staff, however, are excluded from the action.

The move marks a significant escalation from the first partial strike, which ran for 48 hours beginning Wednesday. That action targeted the No. 3 ZRM line at Pohang's No. 2 electrical steel sheet plant and the pickling plant at Gwangyang steelworks. The strike duration has also grown 2.5 times, from 48 hours to 120 hours.

Hot rolling sits at the heart of the steelmaking process. It involves heating slabs produced through steelmaking and continuous casting, then rolling them thin to create hot-rolled coils. The resulting hot-rolled material is sold as a finished product but also serves as feedstock for downstream processes such as cold rolling and plating. A prolonged strike that disrupts hot-rolling output could ripple through those subsequent stages as well.

The union has also left open the possibility of broadening the strike further depending on how negotiations unfold. The dispute committee stated in its directive that it may expand the list of workplaces covered by the second partial strike from Friday, based on the company's response and the progress of talks.

Wages and compensation remain the central sticking points. The union is demanding a 7.1 percent base pay increase, a 600 percent incentive bonus, 50 shares of employee stock, and a 200 percent holiday bonus. Management, by contrast, has offered a 2.0 percent base pay raise along with a lump-sum package worth a total of 4 million won ($2,970) — comprising a 3.5 million won performance incentive and 500,000 won in local gift certificates. The company's latest proposal also includes expanded bonuses for long-serving employees and improved criteria for housing loan support.

The two sides failed to narrow their differences at the Sept. 3 bargaining session. The union subsequently launched a 48-hour partial strike on Wednesday morning — the first in the company's history to target actual production lines.

Management said the first strike caused minimal disruption to actual output, as it deployed available personnel and kept core processes covered under essential work agreements running normally. The second strike, however, will last five days and extend to major hot-rolling lines, meaning the outcome of Tuesday's talks could significantly alter the tension on the production floor.


kwater@heraldcorp.com