Seoul city bus labor and management averted a planned Sept. 16 strike by agreeing to a 3.2% wage increase for 2026 after about 12 hours of negotiations. The Seoul City Bus Labor Union withdrew its planned full walkout roughly two hours before the first buses were due to run, and services are operating normally. The increase is 0.3 percentage point higher than last year's 2.9% rise. The parties deferred their central dispute over the monthly hours used to calculate ordinary wages until the Supreme Court rules on ordinary-wage cases involving transport companies, a decision expected at year-end. Seoul will lift emergency transport measures prepared for the strike.