Hyundai Motor Union announces large-scale strike

The Hyundai Motor trade union announced a strike that will involve approximately 39 thousand employees at factories in the South Koreans of Ulsan, Asan and Jeonju. The local publication Yonhap writes about this with reference to a message from the organization.

The decision is related to an unsuccessful attempt to negotiate with the management of the auto giant on wage issues. Representatives of blue collar workers are demanding that top management increase salaries by 50 percent, increase bonuses, raise the retirement age and reinstate previously fired union representatives.

It is already known that the strike will be the longest since at least 2016, it will last for 16 hours. Employees involved in two eight-hour shifts will take part in it. By the way, negotiations began in May; at the moment, several unsuccessful rounds have already been held, each of which ended in downtime.

In total, over the past three months, production was stopped for 60 hours, which led to a reduction in production by 55,200 cars. Lost revenue amounted to approximately $1.6 billion.

However, representatives of the trade union have already stated that they do not intend to stop until an agreement is reached with the management and are already planning additional strikes for four hours on August 24 and 25.

At the same time, the Kia union also decided to go on strike for the first time in six years, as management did not agree with demands to increase base salaries and tie bonuses to the manufacturer's profits.