KORAIL to hire 660 substitute workers

The Korea Railroad Corp. (KORAIL) started to hire contract workers who will substitute its union members who are on strike. The move is to respond to the current rail strike, which may be protracted to the next year.

KORAIL announced Thursday that it would hire 660 substitute workers including 380 engineers and 280 crew members. This is a follow-up measure to the announcement on Monday that the state-run rail company “could not help recruiting contract workers to be prepared for the case that the strike is protracted.” In the latest announcement, the number of substitute workers to be hired has increased by 160 from 500 (300 engineers, 200 crew members).

KORAIL plans to hire workers among retirees who worked for KORAIL and has a rail operation license, its employees to be retired as of the end of this year and trainees who have completed KORAIL’s internship program since 2010. The substitute workers will take a training program for a certain period of time, and then be assigned to work. The rail service operator will dispatch the supplementary workforce to cargo train services whose operation rate has been considerably lowered due to a failure in maintaining the level of required manpower.

An official from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said, “The plan to outsource the maintenance of rail services, which is currently implemented by KORAIL, has been part of the established plan to reform rail services.”