Roughly 1,300 employees at three Korea Railroad Corporation subsidiaries walked off the job Monday for a three-day general strike, opening the walkout with a rally outside Exit 3 of Seoul Station and a march toward the Cheong Wa Dae precinct. The National Railroad Workers’ Union branches for Korail Networks, Korail Tourism Development and the Railway Customer Center said they will not return until the government shelves a merger plan that folds five Korail affiliates into three specialized companies without guarantees of direct employment or equal pay.
Union officials put attendance at the morning rally at 1,300; police unofficially estimated about 800. SBS English reported that workers booed the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport integration roadmap, arguing it enlarges subsidiary shells while leaving wage gaps between regular and fixed-term staff who perform the same station and customer-service tasks on Korail property.
Subsidiary merger versus direct hire
Seoul’s current proposal would reorganize Korail’s affiliate network into three firms focused on customer service, distribution and logistics, and maintenance. Union leaders call that horizontal integration among subsidiaries a recipe for internal competition over scarce permanent slots. Kim Jong-ho, head of the Korail Networks branch, told reporters subsidiary staff face “endlessly insufficient wages” and discrimination while working beside Korail direct hires on the same platforms.
The counter-demand is vertical integration: bring subsidiary workers onto Korail’s payroll with the same grading, seniority pay and holiday bonuses as parent-company employees. Workers waved banners reading for direct employment with the primary contractor, not mergers that preserve two-tier contracts. The strike does not include train drivers or engineers—Korail said core operations would continue—but station attendants, tourism train crews and call-center counselors are expected to cause visible service friction through Wednesday.
Four-team shifts and pay parity
Published demands include a four-team, two-shift roster based on equal pay for equal work; unified job grades for regular and non-regular workers; length-of-service allowances; and holiday bonuses set at 120 percent of base pay. Newsclaim quoted union speakers saying the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport refused even a short-term treatment improvement roadmap before consolidation, hardening the strike vote.
Korail management told MK and Yonhap that contingency staffing would limit passenger disruption and that Chuseok holiday trains should run on schedule because essential operations staff belong to the parent company. Union stewards countered that understaffed station kiosks and delayed customer callbacks still punish travelers even when locomotives leave on time.
Seoul Station rally and march
Tuesday’s second day of action kept a visible presence in central Seoul: morning shifts picketed outside Seoul Station’s plaza, then moved in a permitted column toward the presidential office district, stopping short of Cheong Wa Dae gates under police lines. Commuters filmed the procession along Sejong-daero, where traffic slowed but was not halted.
The location choice ties the labor fight to President Lee Jae-myung’s pledge to reform irregular work—a promise subsidiary employees say bypasses railway affiliates. Strike captains urged participants to wear union vests and avoid blocking ambulance lanes, mindful of heightened security around the Blue House after recent protest permits were tightened.
Chuseok timing and public opinion
Striking during the week before Chuseok risks public backlash if holiday travelers face long ticket lines or unanswered refund hotlines. Union messaging emphasizes that subsidiary workers also serve holiday peak trains without premium pay, asking passengers to blame policy makers rather than picketers. Polls have not yet captured sentiment, but morning radio call-ins in Seoul split between sympathy for irregular workers and irritation at station delays.
Government negotiators have not scheduled a tripartite session before Wednesday’s planned strike end. Union caucuses may vote to extend the walkout into the holiday if no breakthrough emerges.
What riders should expect
Korail advised passengers to arrive early and expect longer waits at staffed windows. Tourism trains could see cancellations on scenic routes. The strike’s political target is the merger math in Sejong, not a KTX shutdown.
For now the headline number holds: about 1,300 subsidiary workers in a coordinated three-day stoppage, marching from Seoul Station toward the presidential precinct to demand direct Korail employment rather than a reshuffled affiliate map that leaves their pay grades untouched.
