现代汽车韩国三大工厂因十年来首次全日罢工停产

Hyundai Motor's labor union has launched its first full-scale strike in a decade, shutting down every production line at the automaker's three domestic plants. The union is demanding a bonus equal to 30% of last year's net profit and an extension of the retirement age, but management has balked, leaving negotiations at a standstill. With the union already staging partial walkouts on the 24th and 25th and increasingly likely to add more, losses from halted production are expected to snowball.
Union members on the morning shift at Hyundai Motor (005380), who normally clock in at 6:45 a.m., did not report to work on the 21st, according to industry sources. The afternoon shift, which begins at 3:30 p.m., also stayed away.
As a result, all production lines at the Ulsan, Jeonju and Asan plants were idled for the full day on the 21st. About 39,000 union members, including both production and office workers, are taking part in the strike.
It is the first time in 10 years that the union has held an all-day, full-scale strike, the last being on Sept. 26, 2016. Union leaders and delegates traveled to the Hyundai Motor Group headquarters in Yangjae-dong, Seoul, to press the company directly, joining a joint auto industry strike rally organized by the Korean Metal Workers' Union.
As the scale and intensity of the walkouts grow, so does the damage from suspended output. Including the partial strikes planned for the 24th and 25th, total production downtime caused by the union's industrial action this year rises to 136 hours. Hyundai Motor produced 460 vehicles per hour last year, which translates into a shortfall of 62,000 vehicles this summer. The resulting revenue loss is estimated at about 2.6 trillion won ($1.9 billion).
If the company does not put forward a new offer, the union plans to convene its central strike committee on the 25th to decide whether to escalate.
In this year's talks, the two sides are sharply divided not only over the demand for a bonus worth 30% of last year's net profit but also over the reinstatement of members dismissed for illegal acts during past union activity and the introduction of a longer retirement age. Management says the funds available for bonuses are limited and that it cannot accept the union's demand, adding that there is no legal justification for reinstating the dismissed members. On the retirement age, the company argues that individual firms cannot move ahead on their own before the issue is settled through political debate and written into law.
The union counters that Hyundai Motor's retained earnings are large enough to cover both higher bonuses and a longer retirement age. "As of last year, Hyundai Motor's retained earnings stood at 101.3 trillion won, nearly nine times the level in 2007," the union said. "A 50% increase in bonuses is not an excessive demand but a call for the company to honor its own pledge that rewards follow performance."
On the retirement age, the union said, "The additional cost of extending retirement by two years would be at most 180 billion won a year, and there is no reason Hyundai Motor, which earns 13 trillion won in net profit annually, cannot bear that." It added, "We demand the abolition of the current re-employment program for skilled retirees and a full extension of the retirement age."