Hyundai worker stresses partnership with company

Kim Gi-moon

By Choi Kyong-ae

Kim Gi-moon, a 55-year-old Hyundai Motor worker, said Monday that the carmaker’s unionized members are becoming less hawkish.

“That’s because only 45 percent of Hyundai vehicles are now produced at domestic plants, way lower than 70 percent in previous years. Korean consumers increasingly choose imported cars over local ones,” the veteran worker at the paint shop of Hyundai Motor’s No. 1 plant in Ulsan told The Korea Times.

If Hyundai Motor workers continue to rely on labor disputes for higher wages and better working conditions, the country’s top carmaker will produce more vehicles outside the country to cut labor costs and avoid production losses resulting from strikes, he said.

Looking back in October 1988 when he began to work at Hyundai Motor’s paint shop, Kim said it was just a year after the 48,000-member union was established in 1987.

“Working conditions have improved a lot in the past decades helped by union activities. We do not work after 1:30 a.m. any longer, as we did. It was really tough to work the early hours from 12 a.m. through 8 a.m. every other day,” Kim said.

But it is still challenging to work at the paint shop on vehicles due to the smell of petrochemical materials. Wearing a full set of safety gadgets, including a gas mask and specially designed shoes through which electricity does not move, is demanding on a daily basis, he said.

Kim has worked for Hyundai Motor for the past 27 years and has several years before he is due to retire at the age of 60.

This year, however, he sees bigger challenges than ever as a weaker yen makes Japanese carmakers “unrivaled” in price competitiveness in global markets.

Moreover, there is a vote to pick a new union leader scheduled for later this year. The current Lee Kyung-hoon leadership has been criticized by some union members for being “too cooperative” with management.

Labor-management relations at Hyundai may get rough again this year. Hyundai plans to discard its decades-long seniority-based wage system to reduce ever-increasing labor costs despite low productivity at domestic factories.

The carmaker says wages have reached a critical limit and it makes local production of vehicles too costly.

A new union leadership may become militant to make their voices heard during talks with the company, he said.

However, he said that the two parties will settle on wages and other collective bargaining deals peacefully if internal and external business conditions are unfavorable.

“We do not want strikes which paralyze production in Ulsan,” he said.