Rail Strike Enters Third Day with Morning Train Operation Rate at 76%... Strike Participation Rate at 27.2%

As of 9 a.m. on the 7th, the third day of the nationwide Korea Railroad Workers' Union (Railroad Union) strike and the first weekend, the average operation rate of all trains was recorded at 76% of the usual level.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport stated that train operations are running at 100.4% of the original plan through the deployment of substitute personnel. This is an increase of 6.3 percentage points from 69.7% at 9 a.m. the previous day and 7.2 percentage points from 68.8% at 3 p.m. the previous day.

The operation rates by train type are 81.3% for metropolitan subway trains, 77% for KTX, 72.6% for passenger trains, and 20.6% for freight trains.

As of 9 a.m. on the same day, 6,581 out of 24,218 employees scheduled to work participated in the strike, resulting in a participation rate of 27.2%. This is 1.4 percentage points higher than at 9 a.m. the previous day and the same as the figure at 3 p.m. the previous day.

Baek Won-guk, the 2nd Vice Minister of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and head of the government joint emergency transportation countermeasures headquarters, urged the Railroad Union to "withdraw the strike that causes great inconvenience to the public and a huge burden on our economy during these difficult times and return to the workplace even now."

He added, "With the weekend approaching, minimize the inconvenience to long-distance railroad users such as KTX," and requested, "Actively implement measures to promptly monitor congestion so that passengers can use high-speed and intercity buses at any time, and if necessary, quickly deploy additional vehicles."