POSCO union to launch first-ever 48-hour partial strike Wednesday

POSCO's 58-year strike-free record, unbroken since the company's founding in 1968, is about to end. The POSCO labor union will launch a 48-hour partial strike at some production lines at its Pohang and Gwangyang steel mills starting Wednesday at 7 a.m.

The union's dispute countermeasures committee said Tuesday in a strike directive that the 48-hour partial strike will run from 7 a.m. Wednesday to 7 a.m. Friday.

The strike targets the 3ZRM line at Pohang Steel Works' No. 2 electrical steel sheet factory and all lines at Gwangyang Steel Works' pickling plant. The 3ZRM is a 20-stand reversible rolling mill that rolls non-oriented electrical steel sheets — used in electric vehicle motors and generators — down to as thin as 0.15 millimeters.

The Gwangyang pickling plant handles a pretreatment process for cold-rolled steel production, using acid to remove oxide scale from the surface of hot-rolled steel sheets before they go into cold rolling.

Union members assigned to operations and maintenance at those plants will stop working during the strike. The union has also barred other members from filling in for striking workers at the affected plants.

Shift work is expected to return to normal starting with the day shift on Friday.

If there is no progress in wage negotiations after this first partial strike, the union plans to launch a second 120-hour partial strike starting Sept. 16. It has not yet disclosed which plants would be targeted in the second walkout.

The gap between labor and management remains wide. The union is demanding a 7.1 percent increase in base pay, a 600 percent incentive bonus, 50 shares of company stock and a 200 percent holiday bonus. The company, meanwhile, has offered a 2.0 percent base pay increase, a 3.5 million won ($2,610) incentive bonus for meeting targets, and 500,000 won in regional gift certificates.

In its latest, fifth proposal, the company also offered 1 million won each for the Lunar New Year and chuseok bonuses, 150,000 won in welfare points, higher service-anniversary bonuses and improved housing loan terms. However, the two sides have failed to find common ground on the core issues.

Earlier that day, Kim Sung-ho, chief of the POSCO union, shaved his head at a rally in front of POSCO Center in Seoul, urging the company to change its stance. The union said that if there is no progress in negotiations after the first partial strike, it will expand the scale and scope of the walkout. It also plans to consider a full strike in October.

POSCO has moved to minimize production disruptions ahead of the partial strike. The company expects the impact on production to be limited even as the strike proceeds. It plans to maintain operations at core production processes under a collective agreement governing essential work.