Published : Sept. 23, 2016 - 10:05
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THE INVESTOR] South Korea’s bank workers flocked in Seoul on Sept. 23 for a walkout against the expansion of a performance-based pay system the government plans to implement next year.
“We can’t accept the dismissal salary system forced by the administration even with a knife under our necks,” said Kim Moon-ho, head of the union. “It will seriously harm the stability of the financial industry and bring irreversible damage to the people.”
The Korean Financial Industry Union, an umbrella union of roughly 100,000 members working at 15 commercial banks nationwide, plans to go on a general strike at 10:30 a.m. at the Sangam World Cup Stadium in western Seoul.
Korean Financial Industry Union
The move is expected to affect the operation of as many as 10,000 bank branches during the day.
The KFIU claims it has no other choice to protest the scheme for a full-scale performance-linked salary mechanism, saying it will be used to allow banks to fire more employees and eventually lower the competitiveness of the banking sector.
The Bank of Korea has put an emergency response team in operation in a bid to minimize the impact to the financial system. The central bank is not a member of the union, but it shares computer and some other financial transaction networks with the commercial banks.
(
theinvestor@heraldcorp.com)