Workers on the morning shift leave Hyundai Motor's Ulsan plant through the Myeongchon gate in Buk-gu, Ulsan, on July 29 as a partial strike cuts the workday short. [Yonhap]
Workers on the morning shift leave Hyundai Motor's Ulsan plant through the Myeongchon gate in Buk-gu, Ulsan, on July 29 as a partial strike cuts the workday short. [Yonhap]

Hyundai Motor's factories, just back from the summer holiday, are set to stop again. After last month's strikes caused the loss of 42,500 vehicles in production, the union has announced four additional strike days beginning Wednesday.

The Korean Metal Workers' Union's Hyundai Motor chapter held its fifth central dispute committee meeting Tuesday and finalized the schedule for the new round of industrial action.

Workers on both day and night shifts will stage four-hour partial strikes on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday and Monday, the stoppages will lengthen to six hours per shift.

On Wednesday and Thursday, day-shift workers will strike from 10:50 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., while night-shift workers will walk out from 7:30 p.m. until 12:10 a.m. the following day. Permanent day-shift and general office workers will also join the four-hour stoppages on those days.

On Friday and Monday, the strike window expands to six hours. Day-shift workers will stop from 8:50 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and night-shift workers from 5:30 p.m. to 12:10 a.m. Permanent day-shift and general office workers will join from 10 a.m. for six hours each day.

Measured against production-line output, the disruption is even larger. When both day and night shifts each strike for four hours, the line can lose up to eight hours of operation in a single day; at six hours per shift, the daily loss reaches up to 12 hours. Across the four confirmed strike days, cumulative production-line disruption could reach up to 40 hours. Each union member's total strike hours will also rise to 20.

In its strike directive, the union said it would "reorganize the momentum for struggle after the summer holiday, deploy strikes strategically, and press management without wavering to win our demands." The sales, service, Namyang and Mobis committees will each calibrate their strike hours to match the overall target.

Hyundai Motor's Ulsan plant in Buk-gu, Ulsan, after morning-shift workers left following a partial strike on July 20. [Yonhap]
Hyundai Motor's Ulsan plant in Buk-gu, Ulsan, after morning-shift workers left following a partial strike on July 20. [Yonhap]

Working-level talks held during the vacation period also ended without result. The two sides met twice during the break, but negotiations collapsed after management maintained that bargaining could only proceed if the union first withdrew its three core demands.

Those three demands are a bonus increase, reinstatement of dismissed workers, and an extension of the retirement age. The union has argued that management can afford to meet them, noting that while Hyundai Motor's operating profit rose to 520 — using 2020 as a baseline of 100 — the average employee wage climbed only to 140 over the same period. The union contends that management is deliberately prolonging the standoff despite having the means to settle, pushing the negotiations toward a breakdown.

Management has drawn a firm line, saying the retirement-age extension, reinstatement of dismissed workers and bonus increases are not subjects for wage negotiations. It argues that extending the retirement age is tied to law and broader institutional policy rather than something an individual company can decide unilaterally, and that the reinstatement issue has already been settled by the courts. Management also says the bonus increase is bound up with the existing collective agreement and cannot be addressed in this year's wage talks.

The damage so far is already substantial. Three rounds of partial strikes in July caused a total of 60 hours of production-line disruption, with vehicle output losses tallied at 42,510 units. Applying a rough per-vehicle sales figure of 30 million to 40 million won ($28,300) per unit, the cumulative sales loss to date could reach somewhere between 1.3 trillion won and 1.7 trillion won.

Under the no-work, no-pay principle, each employee's estimated wage loss stands at 1.92 million won, with an additional retirement-benefit loss of 14.01 million won per person.

If the new strikes proceed as planned, the disruption will deepen further. The 60 hours of production-line downtime from July's partial strikes, combined with up to 40 additional hours from the four new strike days, would push the cumulative total to as much as 100 hours.

Hyundai Motor has already been grappling with production setbacks this year — first from a parts supplier fire in the first half, then from the union's partial strikes and overtime refusals since July. Those disruptions are now compounded by aging-equipment replacement work at the Asan plant, the summer shutdown, and a line-conversion schedule at the Ulsan plant, all of which have raised the stakes for restoring normal output in the second half.

Management has stressed that prolonged strikes hurt not only the company's earnings but also employee compensation. Internal company data show that operating profit fell from 8.4 trillion won to 2.4 trillion won during the years of annual strikes from 2012 to 2018, whereas the strike-free period from 2019 to 2024 saw earnings recover and wages and performance bonuses rise accordingly.

"Strikes rob workers not only of their wages today but of their future compensation as well," management said, urging both sides to wrap up negotiations as soon as possible.


kwater@heraldcorp.com