DSME cutting salaries 30% for independent directors

Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering is following through with corporate normalization measures by slicing the wages of independent directors by 30 percent, the company said Tuesday.

Four outside directors will have their monthly salary reduced to 2.8 million won ($2,393) as of December, from 4 million won.

The troubled shipbuilder has been hustling to maintain its liquidity. Its CEO and executives have reduced their salaries 20 to 30 percent since September 2015, and general employees have also begun taking 10 to 15 percent pay cuts since July.

“It may not be a large amount of money but we have made the decision to share the pain of corporate restructuring,” Kim Yu-sik, one of the four outside directors, said Tuesday.

Apart from cutting wages, the company has been downsizing its work force to trim labor costs. It has accepted voluntary retirement applications from about 1,500 workers since last year. The company further plans to let workers take turns working, to avoid layoffs but still cut costs. Workers will rotate unpaid leaves for a month beginning next year.