South Korean Truckers Launch Second Major Strike in Six Months, Threatening Auto and Battery Supply Chains

At the depot in Uiwang, 25 kilometres south of Seoul, hundreds of truckers marched in circles under the watch of a heavy police presence. They carried banners and wore headbands reading "Unite Fight," and they chanted, "We stop, the world will stop!" It was Thursday morning, and South Korea's unionised truck drivers had begun their second major strike in under six months.

The central demand is the 'Safe Freight Rate,' a minimum-pay system for truckers that is due to expire at the end of the year. The union wants it made permanent and extended to drivers in other industries, including oil tankers. Fuel costs are soaring, which sharpens the argument. The government has said it will extend the scheme for three years but has rejected the rest of what the union is asking. The union also wants big businesses held accountable if they violate the minimum-wage rule.

The previous round came in June, when an eight-day, non-violent strike delayed cargo shipments across the country and cost more than $1.2 billion in lost output and unmet deliveries. It ended with each side claiming it had won concessions. Hyundai Motor and the steelmaker POSCO were both forced to cut output. This time POSCO has warned that fresh action could slow repair work at a major plant that was hit by floods this summer.

The lead organiser, the Cargo Truckers Solidarity Union, opened 16 rallies nationwide, including one at the port in Ulsan, which houses Hyundai Motor's main manufacturing plant. Numbers are disputed. The union estimated about 22,000 people took part, while the transport ministry counted roughly 9,600. There were no clashes with police. The union says almost all of its 25,000 members, about 6% of the country's truck drivers, will strike, joined by an unspecified number of non-members. "We have no choice but to stop all logistics in Korea," said union head Lee Bong-ju.

At Uiwang, union officials put the crowd at about a thousand. Lee Kwang-jae, head of the union's Seoul metropolitan area branch, told them to take up key positions to block any attempt to move shipments. One organiser shouted at a container truck heading for the depot, "Don't embarrass yourself by working. Join us!" The plan was for half the group to stay at Uiwang and the other half to go to Pyeongtaek, 44 kilometres away and close to ports serving China. In Busan, the country's biggest port, police officers and buses lined key routes.

The government's tone was firm. Transport Minister Won Hee-ryong said earlier in the week that the Safe Freight Rate had not been shown to make truckers safer, only to raise their incomes. On Thursday he said frontline drivers should not sympathise with unjustified collective action and promised, together with police, to strictly crack down on obstruction. Union head Lee countered that the government and ruling party had misled the public by defending capital, claiming truckers' incomes were not low and that expanding the scheme would push up prices through higher logistics costs. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo warned that a prolonged strike would burden major industries, people's livelihoods and the national economy.

Companies had seen this coming. Hyundai Steel, petrochemical firms and a battery maker told Reuters that urgent contract volumes had been shipped and raw materials prepared in advance. They cautioned, though, that limited storage space and logistics capacity would make a long strike a real problem. Hyundai Steel said about 8,000 tonnes of daily steel shipments from its Pohang factory could not move on Thursday. The union has warned that the action could halt oil supplies at major refineries as well as transport at ports and industrial plants. The Korea Oil Station Association asked station owners to stock up, and hydrogen-vehicle charging stations posted warnings that supply could be cut.

The government is deploying military-run container vehicles and weighing more storage space in case cargo piles up. Some industry officials noted that military vehicles may not be suited to carrying goods such as steel or fresh produce. How long stockpiles hold, and whether that backup works, will decide how far this strike reaches.