4 hours Wednesday, 2 hours Thursday, 4 hours Friday
Hyundai Motor begins full strike, production disruptions set to widen
Kia's union is set to launch strikes amid a stalemate in wage and collective bargaining negotiations with management. Some union members began a walkout Friday, with full partial strikes scheduled to begin Wednesday.
According to the automaker industry, the Korean Metal Workers' Union's Kia Motors branch decided to hold a six-hour strike Friday, targeting expanded executive members at the Soha, Hwaseong, Gwangju, maintenance and sales divisions, as well as any rank-and-file members able to participate. The strikers will join a joint auto industry strike rally organized by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions' Korean Metal Workers' Union in front of Hyundai Motor Group's headquarters in Yangjae-dong, Seoul.
Full partial strikes are scheduled for next week. The union plans to hold per-shift strikes of four hours on Wednesday, two hours on Thursday and four hours on Friday. Shifts will work normally on any day when bargaining talks are scheduled.
The union also decided to suspend all overtime work — including factory operations and regional vehicle dispatches — with the exception of safety-related and new-model construction work.
Member education will be suspended from Monday through the end of this year's wage and collective bargaining talks. All labor-management consultations, except those related to safety incidents and new-model discussions, will also be halted.
The union plans to convene a strike countermeasures committee on Friday to reassess the level of future action.
Earlier, the union passed a strike authorization vote on July 23, with 82 percent of the total membership voting in favor. Rather than striking immediately, however, the union continued negotiations while pressuring management through measures such as refusing overtime.
The union is demanding a basic wage increase of 149,600 won ($107) per month, a performance bonus equivalent to 30 percent of last year's operating profit, the introduction of a four-and-a-half-day workweek, and an extension of the retirement age to 65.
Meanwhile, the Hyundai Motor union also launched a full eight-hour strike Friday — its first in 10 years since 2016 — bringing all production lines at the Ulsan, Jeonju and Asan plants to a complete halt for the day.
With Kia's union joining Hyundai Motor in per-shift partial strikes, production disruptions at Hyundai Motor Group are expected to widen further starting next week.
eyre@heraldcorp.com
