By Hyunjoo Jin <\/p>\n
SEOUL, Aug 21 (Reuters) – Hyundai Motor’s South Korean union staged its first full strike in a decade on Friday after wage talks stalled, as it seeks a higher retirement age and \u200cjob protections against artificial intelligence and automation. <\/p>\n
Striking workers from Hyundai Motor, affiliate Kia Corp and suppliers held \u200ca rally outside Hyundai Motor’s headquarters in Seoul, wearing red headbands and chanting demands that include allowing parts suppliers to hike prices and \u200bincreasing the retirement age from the current 60. <\/p>\n
“The key figures who made Hyundai and Kia the world’s strongest company for 35 or 40 years are now being pushed into contract positions,” Hyundai union leader Lee Jong Cheol said from a stage at the rally. <\/p>\n
About 40,000 Hyundai Motor union members are expected to join the walkout on Friday, while around 1,200 to 1,300 \u200cunion members are set to attend the \u2060Seoul rally, a union official said earlier on Friday. <\/p>\n
Members of other unions and those affiliated with the umbrella union were also seen joining, bringing the total expected attendance at \u2060the rally in the capital to about 3,000, the official added. <\/p>\n
The one-day strike illustrates growing labour unrest in South Korea following the election of pro-labour liberal President Lee Jae Myung last year. <\/p>\n
It follows a series of partial walkouts since late July that \u200bhave \u200bdisrupted production of 55,200 vehicles worth over 2.3 trillion won ($1.67 billion), \u200baccording to estimates from Yonhap News Agency. <\/p>\n
The labour \u200caction adds to challenges facing the automaker, which in July said it expected to miss its global sales target this year, amid growing Chinese competition in Europe and falling sales in South Korea. <\/p>\n
The union’s demand to raise the mandatory retirement age is in line with President Lee’s pledge to gradually increase the limit in one of the world’s fastest-ageing countries. <\/p>\n
The union is also seeking to raise bonuses to 800% of monthly base salary from 750%, and has demanded \u200cguarantees to protect jobs as the company adopts AI and automation. <\/p>\n
Hyundai, \u200bwhich owns humanoid robot maker Boston Dynamics, has said it plans \u200bto deploy humanoid robots at its U.S. plant in \u200bGeorgia from 2028, with the aim of expanding their use across its production sites. <\/p>\n
Hyundai Motor \u200cunion spokesperson Kim Jin-wook said the two sides \u200bremained apart over the retirement \u200bage and bonuses, among other issues. <\/p>\n
He said the union is open to resuming wage talks, but would discuss strike plans if the management failed to come up with “forward-looking proposals.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Hyunjoo Jin SEOUL, Aug 21 (Reuters) – Hyundai Motor’s South Korean union staged its first full strike…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[71797,25784,295,702,12479,14191,4666,146,71796,13213,112,1484],"class_list":["post-141229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hyundai-motor","tag-aug-21","tag-friday","tag-hyundai","tag-hyundai-motor","tag-hyundai-motor-union","tag-hyunjoo-jin","tag-kia-corp","tag-lee-jae-myung","tag-lee-jong-cheol","tag-reuters","tag-seoul","tag-south-korean"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141229","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=141229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}