Hundreds of temporary workers at Kia Motors Corp. have halted production at the automaker's main plant
for five days on Monday, demanding higher wages, job security and equal working conditions with its full-time workers, both company and union officials said.
About 400 non-regular painting and polishing workers at Kia's main plant, which mainly builds Sorento sport-utility vehicles, Cerato compact cars and Opirus sedans, in Hwaseong, just south of Seoul, have laid down their tools since Thursday.
The strike by the temporary workers, which the company calls illegal, came less than a week after Kia's union of full-time workers accepted a 5.2 percent pay rise in monthly basic salary for this year after staging partial strikes for weeks.
The temporary workers formed the separate union in June 2005.
The union now has some 800 members, including workers at Kia's 26 subcontractors, according to the union's Web site.
"We can't hold negotiations with the illegal union of non-regular workers," said a company official on the condition of anonymity.
Two days of work stoppage on last Thursday and Friday will result in the company losing some 60 billion won ($64 million), or some 3,000 vehicles, in lost production, the official said.
Kia, run by Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-koo's 37-year-old son Eui-sun, is 38.6 percent owned by the parent company.
In a separate development, Hyundai's 44,000-strong union is moving closer to its own strike after the union rejected the company's final pay proposal last Friday.
Union representatives of Hyundai were scheduled to meet on Monday afternoon to discuss what steps they will take for a potential strike, a union spokesman said.
Hyundai's unionized workers will be asked to vote on the possible strike later this week, the spokesman said.
In a letter to the unionized workers and their family members, Hyundai Motor President Yoon Yeo-cheol appealed to them to resolve the pay dispute without a strike.
"Let's finish the pain of strike," Yoon said in the letter.
"Don't you think about how happily our rivals are looking at our labor-management tension?"
Strikes are almost an annual ritual for Hyundai and Kia, which together hope to become one of the world's fifth-largest automakers by 2010.
Analysts say that poor labor relations is one of major obstacles preventing Hyundai and Kia from achieving that target.
Last year, unionized workers at Hyundai put down their tools for 33 days, causing 1.3 trillion won ($1.4 billion) in lost sales, according to the company.
The lingering embezzlement trial of Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung is another headache for the auto conglomerate.
On Monday, Chung, 69, is scheduled to appear in court in Seoul to try to avoid a possible jail sentence on charges of embezzlement and breach of trust.
In February, Chung was convicted and sentenced to three years in jail for embezzling some $100 million in company funds to bribe and lobby government officials.