SEOUL– Striking cargo truckers voted Friday to decide whether to end their weekslong walkout following the government’s two rounds of back-to-work orders.
The plenary vote began at 9 a.m. in 16 locations nationwide, a day after the executive committee of the Cargo Truckers Solidarity Union held an emergency meeting to decide whether to continue the strike but failed to reach an agreement.
The results of the vote were expected to come around noon.
Since Nov. 24, thousands of cargo truck drivers have staged the strike to demand the extension of the Safe Trucking Freight Rates System guaranteeing minimum wages.
The government and the ruling People Power Party announced last month they will extend the system for another three years beyond its scheduled expiration at the end of the year.
But truck drivers demanded the government make the system permanent and expand it to cover not only truckers delivering cargo and cement but also drivers in other sectors.
The strike has wrought massive supply disruptions across industries, with damage in steel firms and the petrochemical sector reaching 1.3 trillion won (US$987.7 million), respectively.
The government on Thursday issued an order for striking truckers serving in the petrochemical and steel industries to return to work, the second such order following the first issued on the cement industry last week.
The union’s regional branch in the southern port city of Busan, meanwhile, unilaterally decided to end its strike without a vote and told its members to return to work, protesting the vote constitutes an act of “passing the buck” to union members.
About 500 workers who gathered at a port in Busan soon dispersed without a major conflict to return to work.
Source: Yonhap News Agency