Hanwha Ocean's union chief joins a crane sit-in over an offer that meets 93% of the base-pay demand

Management's third offer put a flat 138,689 won on base pay. The union asked for 149,600 won ^[3][4]. The gap is 10,911 won, so Hanwha Ocean has already conceded about 93% of the base-pay demand ^[14][15]. The union called the offer an improvement on earlier proposals and still rejected it, according to people familiar with the talks ^[6]. The Hanwha Ocean chapter says it wants raises in line with the shipbuilding boom and will stay on the crane until its strike committee's demands are met ^[5].

The larger unknown is the bonus. Management's answer is a fixed amount, the 7.5 million won lump sum covering settlement and shared-growth bonuses ^[3]. The union's answer is a formula, 900% of monthly pay ^[4]. A lump sum is paid once, and its cost is known the day it is signed. A bonus set as a multiple of monthly pay grows with each base-pay rise, including the one now under negotiation. The report does not include average pay, headcount or margins, so the distance between the two cannot be put in won. Management made the same kind of choice on retirement. It offered one-year contracts to workers born in 1966, while the union wants the retirement age itself raised ^[3][4].

The subcontractor table is the newer cost question, and in my view the larger one. Six metal workers' union members occupied structures at the yard on Sept. 30 to demand direct bargaining and performance pay without discrimination against subcontracted workers ^[8]. Wellive, one of the contractors now at the table, handles cafeteria services, commuter buses and facility management for Hanwha Ocean ^[11]. The subcontracted workers first sought to bargain with Hanwha Ocean about seven months before the company recognized them on Oct. 2 ^[12]. That dates the request to around March, the month the Yellow Envelope Law took effect ^[13][16]. Their nine-member team is led by Kim Jeong-cheol of the union's South Gyeongsang branch and has four members from Wellive and four from the shipbuilding subcontractors chapter ^[10].

If the in-house chapter settles near the third offer and hands performance pay to the task force management proposed ^[3], this year's cost sits close to what management offered on Oct. 7. The subcontractor talks could also settle on procedure first and leave pay for later. The outcome with a real cost attached is the one where the task force's revision and the subcontractors' claim to equal performance pay ^[8] are decided together. In that case a bonus scheme written for direct employees would be extended to contractor staff.

I think the margin risk sits in that last outcome, at the table that was set to open at 4 p.m. on Oct. 8 ^[7]. The case against that view is solid. Management has already met most of the in-house base-pay demand ^[15], it has kept its other concessions to fixed sums ^[3], and the subcontractor talks had only just begun. A settlement inside the third offer's structure, with no parity commitment for subcontracted workers, would show that this year's labor bill is close to what management put on the table.