Why Korea's Truck Drivers Keep Going on Strike and Shutting Down the Entire Supply Chain

Korea's freight trucking sector has been under renewed stress in 2024-2025 due to rising fuel costs, falling freight rates, and shrinking cargo volumes — conditions nearly identical to those that triggered the massive 2022 Cargo Solidarity strike that paralyzed Korean ports. Koreans in logistics and manufacturing are watching the warning signs stack up again.

Korea's freight trucking industry is a pressure cooker that periodically explodes into full-blown strikes — and when it does, the entire national supply chain grinds to a halt. This post from a logistics-focused Korean internet channel breaks down exactly why that tension exists, and why it's basically a structural problem with no easy fix.

Here's the core issue: ports don't move cargo — trucks do. No matter how efficiently a container terminal operates, every single box eventually has to leave on a truck. That makes truckers the ultimate chokepoint in the supply chain. And the relationship between truckers, shipping terminals, freight forwarders, and cargo owners (called 화주, or 'hwaju') is... not great. In fact, it's a multi-way war where everyone blames everyone else.

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Terminals operate on minute-by-minute schedules. Trucks, on the other hand, deal with traffic, previous delivery delays, driver dispatch issues, and deadhead runs (driving back empty with no pay). So from the terminal's perspective: 'You booked a slot — where are you?' From the trucker's perspective: 'I was stuck waiting at a warehouse for three hours — what do you want from me?' Neither side is entirely wrong, which is exactly what makes it so messy.

Then there's the waiting fee war. Every hour a truck driver sits idle at a gate or warehouse is an hour they're not earning money. Drivers demand compensation for that dead time. Cargo owners, freight companies, and terminals all point fingers at each other over who's responsible for the delay — and nobody wants to pay. This argument has been going on for decades.

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When it all boils over into a strike by the Cargo Solidarity union (화물연대, Korea's major trucking labor union), the consequences are severe. During the 2022 strike, container throughput at Korean ports dropped to just 21% of normal levels. Gwangyang Port, Pyeongtaek-Dangjin Port, and Ulsan Port essentially stopped functioning. Billions of dollars in trade were frozen.

The freight companies themselves are stuck in a bizarre middle position — they're the boss to the truck drivers, but completely at the mercy of the cargo owners above them. Cargo owners complain trucks are too expensive and too slow. Truck drivers point out they're absorbing fuel costs, unpaid waiting time, empty return trips, night shifts, holiday work, and hazardous material handling — all while rates have barely moved in years. There's no minimum freight rate floor, so rates just keep getting undercut in a race to the bottom.

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Korea tried implementing a reservation system to smooth out the chaos at port gates, but most people in the industry consider it a bureaucratic performance rather than a real solution. If the job before yours runs late, your reservation slot means nothing. If too many trucks show up at once, the gate backs up, the yard gets scrambled, and the whole system jams anyway.

In normal times, all this frustration gets vented through shouting matches at loading docks and angry KakaoTalk group chats. But when fuel prices spike, freight rates get slashed, work dries up, waiting times explode, and the whole system starts wobbling at once — all that accumulated stress detonates into a strike. That's not a bug in the system. That IS the system.