"We will deal with illegal strikes strictly and with no leniency in line with the law and principles," Minister of Strategy and Finance Yoon Jeung-hyun said in a statement.

The statement was issued jointly by Yoon as well as four other top officials including the country's labor and commerce ministers.

Korea Railroad Corp.'s labor union went on strike Nov. 26, reportedly angry over a management plan to cut pay and staffing levels.

The government has been running trains with non-union employees of the railway, military personnel and former train drivers.

The company, generally known as KORAIL, operates South Korea's nationwide passenger and freight rail network and some outlying sections of Seoul's subway network that extend into adjacent cities.

Yonhap news agency reported that the workers are angry over plans to reduce wages and staff in a bid to deal with rising debts at the company.

The government has taken a hard line in the past against strikers, using a special power to stop labor unrest in industries deemed of critical economic and social importance.

In recent years it forcibly ended walkouts by pilots at the country's two major airlines in 2005 and one by workers at KORAIL in 2006.

The threat to end the strike comes as South Korea's trade-dependent economy strongly recovers from the global economic slowdown.

The government said Tuesday that exports posted their first year-on-year gain in 13 months in November, rising 18.8 percent to $34.3 billion.

Exports were hit hard by the global economic crisis last year, which saw consumers overseas drastically cut back on spending.

Asia's fourth-largest economy contracted during the final three months of last year, but has since steadily grown as exports and manufacturing have improved amid a stronger global economy.

Yoon and the other government officials expressed concern that the strike could pose a setback to those gains.

They said that paralysis of the country's railroads could deal "fatal injury" to the economy.

"We strongly urge the strikers to end the illegal walkout and return to work," the statement said.