韩华海洋正式工会分会会长登上起重机静坐，公司敦促工会停止占用并重返谈判

Hanwha Ocean Urges Union to End Crane Sit-In, Return to Talks - Seoul Economic Daily
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Kim Yu-cheol, head of the Hanwha Ocean branch of the Korean Metal Workers' Union, which represents the shipbuilder's directly employed regular workers, stages a protest atop a crane at Hanwha Ocean's Geoje shipyard in Gyeongsang province on Aug. 8. /Hanwha Ocean labor union
Hanwha Ocean (042660) called on its labor union to halt actions that threaten worker safety and production and to return to the bargaining table, after the head of the union's local branch began a sit-in atop a shipyard crane. The company said it had presented three separate offers over four months of wage and collective bargaining negotiations and expressed deep regret that the union had instead resorted to an occupation protest.
According to Hanwha Ocean on the 9th, Chung In-sub, president and head of the management support division, voiced concern over the high-altitude protest in a statement distributed to employees that day, saying that "threats to safety and production cannot be subject to compromise." Labor and management at Hanwha Ocean have held 26 rounds of collective bargaining this year without reaching an agreement. The head of the union branch began the crane sit-in the previous day, on the 8th.
In the statement, Chung repeatedly warned of the risk of accidents posed by the illegal occupation of the worksite. "An illegal occupation of the site can undermine the concentration of both those who are working and the person staging the protest, which can have an adverse effect on safety," he said. "If actions like this continue, fatigue on the shop floor will also build up." He noted that because dock cranes have a significant bearing on production, launching and delivery schedules, the occupation could inflict broader losses on the company's operations and credibility. "In 2022, the union itself said of occupation protests that blocking normal production activity is a path to mutual destruction and that work itself must not be obstructed," Chung said. "I want to ask whether the negotiations and the offers made so far amounted to a situation extreme enough to warrant abandoning its own principles and taking that path to mutual destruction."
Hanwha Ocean has put forward three bargaining offers to the union so far. Management said it proposed a base pay increase in line with levels at peer shipbuilders, 1 million welfare points a year, and increases of roughly 1 million won in each of the main allowances for family events. With Chinese shipyards narrowing the technology gap and a debt burden accumulated in past years still weighing on the company, management said it had prioritized building a foundation for employees' long-term income and benefits over one-off compensation.
The company also clarified its position on the two biggest points of contention: the rehiring of retirees and an overhaul of the performance pay formula. On the "one year plus one year" rehiring scheme sought by the union, Chung drew a line, saying an "unconditional additional one-year extension that does not take into account conditions on the production floor and the need to expand new hiring of young workers is difficult to accept." On the financial performance pay system introduced in 2025, however, he signaled room for discussion, saying the company would "form a labor-management task force to discuss specific ways to improve the criteria and develop metrics the shop floor can accept."
"An illegal occupation ultimately tears down future performance and the foundation we stand on, and it helps neither labor nor management," Chung said. "Rather than making abstract demands from atop a crane for a 'satisfactory company offer,' I hope the union will clearly state specific demands at the negotiating table and discuss how to find an alternative."
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Original reporting by
Song Joo-hee
for Seoul Economic Daily.
AI-translated from Korean. Quotes from foreign sources are based on Korean-language reports and may not reflect exact original wording.
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