The union representing workers at South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor staged its first full-day strike in 10 years on Friday, after long-running wage and retirement age talks with management broke down.<\/p>\n
The action at South Korea\u2019s largest automaker comes amid concerns over job security as artificial intelligence transforms the country\u2019s auto industry.<\/p>\n
Around 40,000 employees, including office workers, are estimated to be taking part in the action, according to the union.<\/p>\n
The action comes after workers held a three-day partial walkout last month.<\/p>\n
Officials at the union said its demands \u2014 for a 50 percent increase in bonuses and two-year extension to the retirement age \u2014 have been reasonable given what it sees as the firm\u2019s stable financial position.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe company\u2019s retained earnings stood at 101 trillion won ($73 billion) last year, so a 50-percent increase in bonuses is not an excessive demand,\u201d it said in a statement sent to AFP on Friday.<\/p>\n
Frenzied global demand for advanced memory chips used in AI data centres has buoyed South Korea\u2019s economy, dominated by semiconductor giants Samsung and SK hynix.<\/p>\n
The boom has also fuelled labour demands, with workers from biotech and autos to shipbuilding seeking a larger share of corporate profits through bonuses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe additional cost of extending the retirement age by two years would be about 180 billion won annually,\u201d the union\u2019s statement said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no reason Hyundai Motor, which generates 13 trillion won in annual net profit, cannot bear this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The automaker told AFP that it could not \u201caccept the union\u2019s demands\u201d without a solid legal or rational basis.<\/p>\n
On Friday, workers on the 6:45 am morning shift did not report for work, while those on the 3:30 pm afternoon shift were also told to stay home, the union said.<\/p>\n
The full-day strike is expected to halt production at Hyundai Motor plants nationwide, including Ulsan, Jeonju and Asan.<\/p>\n
Hyundai posted record second-quarter revenue of 49.2 trillion won, although operating profit fell 20.8 percent on-year amid weaker sales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The union representing workers at South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor staged its first full-day strike in 10 years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[295,702,2285,19810],"class_list":["post-128115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hyundai-motor","tag-hyundai","tag-hyundai-motor","tag-international","tag-mna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128115","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=128115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}