Exterior view of Hyundai Steel headquarters. Photo courtesy of Hyundai Steel
Hyundai Steel (004020.KS) is moving forward with bargaining between prime contractor and subcontractor labor and management under the “Yellow Envelope Act” (the revised Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act), which took effect in March.
According to industry sources on the 29th, Hyundai Steel and the unions of its four subsidiaries — ITC (Dangjin), ISC (Incheon), IMC (Pohang), and IEC (Suncheon) — signed the basic principles related to prime contractor-subcontractor bargaining at the Dangjin Chamber of Commerce and Industry that day. The signing came 68 days after the ITC union became the first among the subsidiaries to request bargaining in May.
Hyundai Steel is the first within Hyundai Motor Group to sign principles related to bargaining with subcontractor unions since the Yellow Envelope Act took effect in March. Hyundai Steel plans to conduct bargaining in a three-party structure with the unions, including subsidiary management.
The industrial safety sector, for which the National Labor Relations Commission recognized Hyundai Steel’s status as an employer, will be addressed first as a bargaining agenda. For the remaining pending issues, labor and management agreed to continue consultations on the premise that both sides may hear each other’s views later if necessary. However, at an earlier working-level meeting, labor and management showed a wide gap in positions over the bargaining agenda.
The prime contractor and subcontractor sides plan to enter into main talks next month after procedures such as public notice of the bargaining request. The four subsidiary unions, which Hyundai Steel established starting in 2021, have a total of about 5,000 members. Most of them transferred from Hyundai Steel’s partner companies to become full-time employees of the subsidiaries.
In addition, the Hyundai Steel non-regular workers’ branch under the Korean Metal Workers’ Union, which represents about 2,000 workers from 15 partner companies, has also requested bargaining with Hyundai Steel.