Hyundai Motor’s labor union commenced additional partial strikes on August 12, immediately after returning from summer vacation, prompting the company to disclose this year’s cumulative strike damage figures and historical data while urging a swift resolution to negotiations.<\/p>\n
The union has scheduled additional strikes of four hours per shift on August 12 and 13, and six hours per shift on August 14 and 18. This follows three rounds of partial strikes conducted last month.<\/p>\n
Strikes at Hyundai Motor’s union are hardly a new phenomenon. According to a tally reported by NewsPim on July 21, the union, now in its 40th year since its establishment in 1987, has managed to avoid strikes in only 10 of those years: 2019\u20132024, 2011, 2010, 2009, and 1994. In the remaining 30 years, strikes of varying scale have recurred, resulting in a cumulative 463 days of plant shutdowns and an estimated \u20a919 trillion to \u20a920 trillion (approximately $13.4 billion to approximately $14.1 billion) in lost production.<\/p>\n
According to the company’s tally of this year’s strike damage, production lines were halted for two hours per day from July 13\u201315, and four hours per day from July 20\u201322 and July 29\u201331. While simple addition yields 30 hours, factoring in Hyundai’s two-shift system \u2014 morning and afternoon \u2014 total strike time reaches 60 hours. Combined with four instances of Saturday overtime refusal, cumulative production losses are estimated at 42,510 vehicles.<\/p>\n
Individual worker losses under the “no work, no pay” principle have also materialized. For technical workers, which includes overtime, per-worker wage losses amount to approximately \u20a91.92 million (approximately $1,356). For a technical worker born in 1967 with 30 years of service, severance pay losses reach \u20a914.01 million (approximately $9,897).<\/p>\n
In an unusual move, Hyundai also released internal data comparing performance during strike and strike-free periods. After three consecutive strike-free years of wage and collective bargaining agreements from 2009 to 2011, strikes occurred every year from 2012 to 2018. Annual strike hours were as follows: 2012 \u2014 164 hours with 8 overtime refusals; 2013 \u2014 87 hours with 2 refusals; 2014 \u2014 66.8 hours with 4 refusals; 2015 \u2014 36.5 hours with 2 refusals; 2016 \u2014 212 hours with 12 refusals; 2017 \u2014 172 hours with 7 refusals; 2018 \u2014 18 hours with 2 refusals.<\/p>\n
The data is summarized in the table below.<\/p>\n
YearStrike HoursOvertime Refusals2012164 hours8201387 hours2201466.8 hours4201536.5 hours22016212 hours122017172 hours7201818 hours2<\/p>\n
Operating profit during this period showed a clear downward trajectory. From \u20a98.4 trillion (approximately $5.9 billion) in 2012, it fell to \u20a98.3 trillion (approximately $5.9 billion) in 2013, \u20a97.5 trillion (approximately $5.3 billion) in 2014, \u20a96.4 trillion (approximately $4.5 billion) in 2015, \u20a95.2 trillion (approximately $3.7 billion) in 2016, \u20a94.6 trillion (approximately $3.2 billion) in 2017, and shrank to \u20a92.4 trillion (approximately $1.7 billion) by 2018.<\/p>\n
Conversely, performance rebounded rapidly after 2019 when strikes ceased. Operating profit recovered to \u20a93.6 trillion (approximately $2.5 billion) in 2019, dipped briefly to \u20a92.4 trillion (approximately $1.7 billion) in 2020, then surged to \u20a96.7 trillion (approximately $4.7 billion) in 2021, \u20a99.8 trillion (approximately $6.9 billion) in 2022, and \u20a915.1 trillion (approximately $10.7 billion) in 2023. After recording \u20a914.2 trillion (approximately $10.0 billion) in 2024, the strike-free streak was broken last year after six years, and operating profit fell back to \u20a911.5 trillion (approximately $8.1 billion).<\/p>\n
The operating profit trend from 2012 to 2025 is illustrated in the chart below.<\/p>\n
The company analyzed that during years with prolonged strikes, delayed investments and construction schedules worsened performance, and the ripple effect reduced total wages and bonuses for employees. In contrast, during strike-free periods when negotiations concluded smoothly, timely investments and flexible responses to market changes drove a performance rebound, creating a virtuous cycle of increasing annual compensation.<\/p>\n
“Strikes not only cause immediate wage losses but also rob workers of future compensation opportunities,” Hyundai stated. “We must now look back at the efforts we have built together.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the two sides remain deadlocked on core issues. The company reaffirmed its position that the union’s three key demands \u2014 reinstatement of dismissed workers, retirement age extension, and bonus increases \u2014 are not subject to wage negotiations. On reinstatement, the company drew a firm line, noting that courts have already ruled the dismissals as justified and that the matter cannot legally be a subject of negotiation. Retirement age extension is a legislative issue that individual companies cannot easily resolve, and bonuses are already increased annually, with the 2025 collective bargaining agreement remaining in effect until March of next year \u2014 making the demand unacceptable.<\/p>\n
The gap in the wage negotiations themselves, which form the backdrop to this strike, is also substantial. The union is demanding a monthly base pay increase of \u20a9149,600, performance bonuses equivalent to 30% of the previous year’s net profit, and a bonus increase to 800%. In response, as of August 9, the company has proposed a base pay increase of \u20a989,000 per month, performance pay of 350% of monthly base pay, plus \u20a910 million (approximately $7,065) in cash and 15 shares of stock.<\/p>\n
CategoryUnion DemandCompany Offer (as of Aug. 9)Base Pay Increase\u20a9149,600\/month\u20a989,000\/monthPerformance Pay30% of prior year net profit350% of monthly base payBonusIncrease to 800%\u2014Additional Payment\u2014\u20a910 million cash + 15 shares<\/p>\n
Instead, Hyundai has reportedly communicated that it is willing to present additional wage-related proposals if the union voluntarily withdraws the three contested demands, keeping the focus on wage and performance pay distribution in line with the original purpose of wage negotiations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hyundai Motor’s labor union commenced additional partial strikes on August 12, immediately after returning from summer vacation, prompting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[53324,295,294,702,293,12479,59548,613,22842,60275,46564,2716,60276,60274],"class_list":["post-116834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hyundai","tag-bonus-increase","tag-hyundai","tag-hyundai-group","tag-hyundai-motor","tag-hyundai-motor-group","tag-hyundai-motor-union","tag-no-work-no-pay","tag-operating-profit","tag-partial-strike","tag-production-loss","tag-reinstatement-of-dismissed-workers","tag-retirement-age-extension","tag-strike-free","tag-wage-and-collective-bargaining"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}