Tag: subway

It looks like there could be some serious gridlock if the subway workers strike as planned to stop the implementing of performance based pay:

The Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union will enter an all-out strike from today, while metros in Seoul and Busan also announced a strike from today, which comes as worrying news for many commuters who fear they may have to contend with nationwide paralyzed underground and railroad traffic.

The announcement on Monday heralds the first time in 22 years that the transport workers’ union and public metro companies in Seoul decided to hold a simultaneous strike.

The transport workers’ strikes follow a general strike by the Korean Financial Industry Union since Friday, and will be followed by another from Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union on Wednesday and by the Federation of Korean Trade Unions and Korean Confederation of Trade Unions on Thursday.

The unions are protesting the central government’s plan to extend the performance-based salary system to more employees of public companies and organizations.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

I hope this one western trend that some Koreans will not think is cool to take up:

Graffiti has been spotted in at least 20 subway stations over the past two weeks. Unlike the elaborate work of graffiti artists – with a distinct aesthetic or message – the recent graffiti were mere scribbles done in less than a minute.

Stations with graffiti problems include Jamsil, Gangnam, Konkuk University, Hapjeong, and Sangsu.

There’s a history to Korea’s subway graffiti problem. In May 2016, a subway car idled in a garage in Incheon was found with two drawings spraypainted on it.

In May 2015, a Latvian graffiti artist and three others were arrested for defacing Seoul Metro subway cars. In February 2015, a group of four Australians fled Korea after covering subway cars in Wangsimni, Anam, and Sinnonhyeon stations in graffiti.

The Korea Railway Police feared that foreign graffiti artists were targeting its cars – and circulating information on how to penetrate certain stations with lax security.

Current law states that graffiti corresponds to property damage described in Article 336 of the criminal code. Guilty parties can be imprisoned for a maximum of three years or fined up to 7 million won ($6,290).

Additional punishment is possible if multiple people were involved, according to the Law on Punishment of Violent Acts.

However, it is not easy to track down graffiti aficionados, since they work stealthily.

“We have found through CCTV footage that there was one culprit involved, but it is difficult to detect the identity of the suspect,” said a police official in charge of a recent graffiti case at Jamsil Station on subway line No. 2. “The person in question committed the crime and fled within a minute. Obscure scribbles 30 cm (1 foot) wide and 50 cm (1.6 feet) tall were written in marker on the walls of a passageway.

“Foreign culprits are more difficult to arrest since many have left the nation when investigations have started,” said Kim Hyeon-mo, an investigator of the Korea Railway Police.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

This is just an example of why Korean youth have such a hard time finding employment when retirees over 60 with no job training are given jobs they have no skills for:

Seoul Metro, which has been outsourcing maintenance work to reduce costs, pressured subcontractors to hire its own retirees at triple the salary of regular mechanics.

And many were hired to do mechanical work for which they had no training.

The influx of untrained Seoul Metro retirees over the age of 60 resulted in the real mechanics being forced to work alone, as was a teenaged maintenance worker who was killed by an arriving train at Guui Station on May 28.

Internal records of Eunsung PSD, the subcontractor who employed the 19-year-old accident victim, showed that Seoul Metro has been pressuring such subcontractors to hire its retirees.   (……..)

“The situation today is no different to and perhaps worse than the social hierarchy of the Joseon Dynasty,” said the Saenuri Party’s floor leader Chung Jin-suk. “How is it possible that a 19-year-old young man receives 1.44 million won while a Seoul Metro retiree rakes in some 4 million won per month?”

The history of so-called revolving door appointments – the finding of cushy jobs for people retiring from government corporations – between Seoul Metro and the subcontractor does not end there.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

It appears that another incident involving safety has claimed more lives in South Korea:

Four workers were killed and 10 others were injured Wednesday, when a subway construction site near Seoul collapsed due to what is believed to be an explosion of an oxygen cylinder, police said.

The victims, who were trapped under debris 15 meters underground, were transported to nearby hospitals for treatment, according to authorities.

The accident, which occurred in the city of Namyangju, east of Seoul, around 7:20 a.m., took place when a total of 17 workers were doing welding work.

A witness said there was a huge blast, but the police said they believe explosives were not being used at the time of the collapse.

The number of deaths could increase as some of the injured are in critical condition, the police said.

Police and firefighters said they are investigating the exact cause of the accident.  [Yonhap]

Considering some of the drunken and mentally unstable incidents I have seen happen on the Seoul subways this is a job I have a lot of respect for the people working it:

Wearing stab-proof vests over their uniform shirt, they patrol underground during duty hours. Their mission is to help secure safety of people and keep peace.

Policemen? No, they are Subway Guards helping prevent crimes and incidents and establish order at more than 300 subway stations in Seoul.  (……)

Although guards do not have the power to arrest, unlike police officers, most of them are well-trained professionals, each mastering several martial arts.

“I majored in security science. I am a third-degree black belt in Taekwondo and fourth in Hapkido. Many guards here have similar backgrounds,” Han Ji-yong, Lee’s partner, said.

The number of guards for Seoul Metro has increased from 40 in 2011 to 133 this year. According to Seoul Metro’s data, the guards were involved in 53,448 cases of violations in 2015, up 20 percent from three years earlier. The daytime shift workers take on the job from early morning — 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. — and from then come nighttime shifters to work until the last train arrives at 1 a.m. Ten guards work each shift per line.

The work becomes tough when they have to face violent drunken passengers. “They are usually typical patriarchal men in their 50s and 60s,” Lee said.   [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link.

A family member of a victim of the Daegu subway fire in 2003 weeps at a memorial held on Feb. 18, 2016. A man with a history of mental illness set a subway car on fire in the morning of Feb. 18, 2003. The blaze quickly spread to a train on the opposite track, killing 192 people and injuring 148 others. (Yonhap)

Commuter who walked past actress at Waterloo station cleared of 'bizarre' sex assault claim https://t.co/AOr8nRVv8Y

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) February 7, 2016

It makes you wonder if the additional safety risk caused by the platform screen doors is worth the suicide prevention rationale for installing them in the first place?:

An elderly woman died Wednesday after her purse was caught between a subway train and a platform screen door at Seoul Station, and she was dragged until she fell onto the tracks.

According to police, the woman, surnamed Seol, 81, got stuck while exiting the train at 9:04 a.m. She was pulled for about seven meters between the glass and the train and before falling on the tracks.

Witnesses said the accident happened because her purse was caught in the closing subway doors and she tried to pull it out.

The subway doors and the platform screen doors closed at the same time and the woman was caught between them, but the train departed without the engine driver noticing this.

“When the rescue team arrived, she was already dead with a serious head injury,” a police officer said. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Ultimately the authorities were able to catch the crazy man threatening passengers with a knife, but I am not sure what authorities in Seoul can do to prevent crazy people from doing crazy things:

Authorities on Tuesday apprehended a middle-aged man who was alleged to have brandished a 10-inch knife and threatened passengers onboard a subway train in Seoul during morning rush hour.

The suspect, determined later to be a 51-year-old homeless man, was caught more than an hour after the episode, in which he brandished a knife onboard a train on subway line No. 1 around 8:20 a.m., before exiting at Jonggak Station.

No injuries were reported, though the incident highlighted a barrage of loopholes present in subway security systems in the capital, with a population density almost twice that of New York City and where more than 7 million people on average use the trains daily.

Last year, police recorded 3,040 crimes at local subway stations, up 58 percent from the 1,922 cases in 2013.

The most apparent oversight, however, is the lack of security resources and personnel.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Passengers sit with their feet aligned with heart-shaped stickers on the floor of a subway car on Seoul’s Line No. 3 on Dec. 24, 2015. Seoul Metro, the operator of the subway system, has introduced the stickers in a bid to rid its passengers of the habit of spreading or crossing their legs beyond the confines of their hips and taking up too much space. (Yonhap)