Efforts for Revival
Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) will push forward with the return of about 20% of manufacturing workers’ salaries after office workers. DSME seems to show a gesture to further share pain on its own at a time when the government will inject trillions of Korean won into DSME.
According to the financial industry and the shipbuilding industry on March 20, DSME is considering getting some of its blue-collar workers’ salaries returned to the company in line with the government's announcement of giving financial support to the beleaguered shipbuilder, which will be made soon. About 5,500 of DSME's 10,000-person workforce are manufacturing workers. DSME’s while-collar workers have been returning 15-20% of their wages to the company since July last year, but its manufacturing workers has been sharing pain in a way that reduces overtime work.
DSME is negotiating with its labor union over the return of roughly 20% of manufacturing workers’ salaries. The company is reportedly going ahead with a plan to lower employees’ current average annual salary from 63 million won (US$54,000) to 50 million won (US$43,000).
Industry experts say that this move was triggered by people’s criticism that the company takes taxpayers’ money to survive. They interpret it as DSME’s efforts to emphasize that the company is doing everything it can do as long as the government began to bail out DSME.