GM Korea's union to launch partial strike this week as wage talks stall
Workers stage a protest against the GM Korea's management in this photo provided by the company. Yonhap
The labor union of GM Korea the Korean unit of U.S. automaker General Motors, plans to stage a partial strike this week, as it has failed to narrow differences with management in ongoing wage negotiations, union officials said Wednesday.
Unionized workers will stage two-hour walkouts across all shifts from Thursday to Friday, and expand them to four hours starting Monday. The union has also vowed to refuse overtime work.
The decision came after the two sides failed to make a breakthrough during their 12th round of wage talks held earlier in the day at GM Korea's Bupyeong plant in Incheon, west of Seoul.
The two sides are also at odds over the management's plan to sell GM's Korean service centers nationwide and unutilized facilities. The union has demanded the withdrawal of the asset sale plan as a precondition for the wage negotiations.
The dispute comes amid mounting anxiety over the possibility that GM could reduce or eliminate its Korean manufacturing footprint if the United States maintains its 25 percent tariffs on auto imports.
GM Korea exports approximately 410,000 vehicles annually, with about 85 percent of those shipments headed to the U.S.