[Yonhap News Photo]
Unionized workers at Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering, one of South Korea's three top shipbuilders, took a vote Monday over a proposed strike calling for job security.
The vote by some 7,000 workers came after Daewoo Shipbuilding CEO Jung Sung-leep last week suggested the company should curtail facilities for offshore plants by up to 25 percent to ride out its liquidity crisis.
Jung also supported the idea of separating Daewoo Shipbuilding's defense section for its independent survival. The company has already presented a self-rehabilitation program worth 5.3 trillion won (4.5 billion US dollars) to reduce its cost and debt through asset sales and cuts in jobs and wages.
Daewoo Shipbuilding and two other top South Korean shipyards are under creditor-led restructuring to reduce snowballing debts that have weighed heavily on creditor banks and prompted government officials to set up an 11 trillion won restructuring fund.
Last year the shipyard, hit by a delay in the construction of offshore facilities and the cancellation of orders, posted a record net loss of 5.13 trillion won, compared with a profit of 33 billion won a year earlier.
Last week, prosecutors raided Daewoo's offices and shipyard in a probe into allegations that its former executives were engaged in window dressing and accounting fraud to secure a continued flow of bank loans.
Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
In January, auditors of the shipyard filed a petition asking prosecutors to launch a probe into its former executives for concealing huge losses in 2013 and 2014.
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