Seoul City Bus Labor Talks End in Pre-Dawn Deal After All-Night Negotiations

After an all-night negotiation session that stretched past dawn, the labor union and management of Seoul city buses reached a final agreement just short of a strike. According to the results of the conciliation meeting at the Seoul Regional Labor Relations Commission, the Seoul Bus Labor Union and the Seoul Bus Transport Business Association reached an agreement on a revised collective bargaining proposal covering wages and working conditions at around 1:50 a.m. on the 16th, during the second conciliation meeting held at the commission in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul. According to both sides, talks began at 2 p.m. the previous day, broke down once, and after roughly 12 hours of negotiation, the two sides finally found common ground. With both parties agreeing in writing to withdraw the strike, the city narrowly avoided disruption to commuters' morning bus service. Labor commission conciliation is a procedure in which a neutral body mediates when labor and management disagree over wages and other conditions, helping them reach a settlement.

Under the agreement signed by both sides, wages for Seoul city bus driver union members in 2026 will rise by 3.2% based on hourly pay by seniority step. The union also announced that the planned full-scale strike from the first bus at 4 a.m. on the 16th was withdrawn.

According to both sides' negotiating positions, the issue of the standard wage calculation basis in hours—the biggest sticking point of the talks—was not resolved in this agreement. The union, citing a Supreme Court ruling, argued for 176 hours, while management insisted on 209 hours. Under the agreement, this issue remains a subject for further discussion between the two sides in the future.