Un-ho Jeong broke the short silence and spoke.

"Isn't this going too far? Last year and this year your people took home performance pay averaging close to thirty million won a head. Have you forgotten that?"

President Un-ho Jeong had said it was going too far. Mu-seok Kang shook his head at that, and spoke.

"You would withdraw the existing bonus system and give us ten percent of operating profit — we had high hopes of that. Which is why we agreed to the number the company wanted on the base pay increase, against our usual practice. You'll grant us that much?"

Un-ho Jeong nodded.

"I grant that you met the company on the base pay increase. But what has that to do with anything now?"

"It has everything to do with it."

Mu-seok Kang looked at Seong-ho Kim and spoke.

"You promised us otherwise, Vice-Chairman. The performance pay came to less than we expected. Under the bonus system our monthly pay would have risen, and we could have expected the bonus to rise along with it."

Mu-seok Kang stopped a moment, and his face creased into a frown.

Then he spoke, and there was anger in it.

"But once you take in the low base pay increase and the fact that we'll get no performance pay next year or the year after, thirty million won is not a lot of money. If anything, the employees come out of it enormously worse off."

Mu-seok Kang raised his voice, and the union executive came in behind him as one and poured out their complaints.

Mu-seok Kang put up a hand a moment to settle the executive, and spoke.

"You promised us high performance pay, and the reality was otherwise. And what you're doing now does nothing but sharpen our disappointment."

"What is it that has disappointed you all so much?"

Seong-ho Kim put the question to Mu-seok Kang in a level voice, and Mu-seok Kang answered Seong-ho Kim's question as though he had been waiting for it.

"The investment. Expanding investment at a time when we ought to be pulling our…