Seoul: Tens of thousands of South Korean auto and shipbuilding workers are set to launch partial strikes this week after negotiations over wage increases stalled.
Employees at Hyundai Motor — the South’s top automaker — are set to walk off the job for at least four hours a day from Tuesday to Friday, a labour union spokesman told AFP.
About 75 per cent of the firm’s 48,800 unionised workers voted last week for the stoppages after months-long negotiations with management failed to meet their demand for a 7.2-per cent pay rise and other benefits.
It would mark the fifth straight year of industrial action at the automaker. Hyundai, along with its smaller affiliate Kia, forms the world’s fifth-largest carmaking group.
At the same time, workers at Hyundai Heavy Industries — the world’s largest shipbuilder by sales — are set to walk off the job for at least four hours a day on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.
Some 60 per cent of the 15,000 unionised workers approved the partial stoppage to demand a bigger wage rise and bonuses.
Workers of the two firms will hold a joint rally Wednesday in the southeastern industrial city of Ulsan, where both companies have their biggest plants, a Hyundai Heavy union spokesman said.
“We happened to go on strike at the same time so we decided to do this together,” he told AFP.
It will be the first time in 23 years that workers in both firms have staged industrial action at the same time.
