Hyundai Motor's union suspends Monday strike as wage talks resume
Following Friday's full-scale walkout involving 38,000 workers, Hyundai Motor's union called off its planned Monday actions ahead of a 17th round of wage negotiations with the company.
People are seen walking in front of Hyundai Motor Group's headquarters in Seocho District, southern Seoul, on Aug. 21.
NEWS1
Hyundai Motor's union has called off Monday's planned strike as it prepares to resume wage negotiations with the automaker in a 17th round of talks.
The two sides are set to meet at Hyundai's Ulsan plant on Monday. The union had planned four-hour partial strikes on both Monday and Tuesday but decided to suspend Monday's action, with unionized workers set to decide whether to proceed with Tuesday's strike based on how the resumed talks go.
The pause follows a full-day walkout Friday that halted Hyundai's domestic production lines entirely, the union's first full-scale strike in a decade.
About 38,000 union members took part in the eight-hour walkout after wage negotiations reached an impasse.
Industry estimates had projected that lost sales could exceed 2.6 trillion won ($1.88 billion) this year if the additional partial strikes scheduled for Monday and Tuesday also went ahead.
The two sides have held 16 rounds of formal negotiations since early May but have made little progress in narrowing their differences. They remain particularly divided over the union’s demands for a 50 percent increase in bonuses, the reinstatement of dismissed union members and an extension of the retirement age.
Hyundai has argued that it needs to secure financial resources as global competition intensifies, particularly amid an influx of lower-priced Chinese EVs. The company has also maintained that reinstating dismissed workers falls outside the scope of wage negotiations and that any extension of the retirement age should follow broader legal and institutional discussions rather than the current talks.
Negotiations have remained deadlocked since the two sides held their first meeting on May 6. In response, the workers have staged intermittent partial strikes lasting two to six hours.
Including Friday’s full-scale strike, union members have gone on strike for a cumulative 60 hours this year; when stoppages by individual shifts are counted separately, the automaker’s production lines have been idle for a combined 120 hours.
Had the union proceeded with both four-hour partial strikes scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, the cumulative production-line shutdown would have reached 136 hours this year.
Industry estimates suggest the strikes have disrupted the production of about 55,200 vehicles.
BY CHO MUN-GYU [[email protected]]
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
