▲ Korean Air planes taxi at Gimpo International Airport. (File Photo: Yonhap News)
Korean Air has narrowly averted a pilot strike crisis for the first time in 10 years.
According to the industry on October 7, the Korean Air Pilots Union (KAPU) accepted the recommendation of the Seoul Regional Labor Relations Commission and withdrew its application for labor dispute mediation.
The commission reportedly judged that normal labor-management negotiations would be difficult if the issue of pilot seniority resulting from the merger between Korean Air and Asiana Airlines were raised as a collective bargaining agenda.
Accordingly, the commission persuaded the pilots union to withdraw the mediation request and proceed with negotiations excluding the seniority issue, thereby producing a recommendation.
In accordance with the recommendation, labor and management plan to continue negotiations through October 27 to reach a collective agreement for 2024 and a wage agreement for 2025.
The negotiation deadline can be extended by mutual agreement, and it was decided not to deal with seniority-related matters during this period.
Previously, when collective bargaining and wage negotiations failed to reach an agreement, the union applied for labor dispute mediation with the Seoul Regional Labor Relations Commission on September 7.
It was the union's first mediation request in 11 years since December 2015.
The union had previously failed to narrow its differences with management during the 2015 wage negotiations and went on strike for seven days in December 2016.
The union had protested that although Article 24 of the collective agreement stipulates that "the company shall observe the flight crew seniority ranking system determined by labor-management agreement," management unilaterally prepared a seniority proposal.
On the other hand, management maintained that it prepared a neutral promotion seniority proposal through external consulting, and that promotions are part of management's inherent personnel authority and cannot be subject to mediation.
Korean Air stated, "We will faithfully participate in future negotiations while maintaining the principle that seniority is an inherent personnel authority."
(File Photo: Yonhap News)
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