Autoworker witnesses dramatic changes

Cho Nam-wook

By Choi Kyong-ae

Cho Nam-wook, 53, is one of tens of thousands of workers at major carmakers in Korea. He has witnessed dramatic changes in the auto industry over the past decades.

“I began to work at GM Korea in 1987 when the company was called Daewoo Motor. We manufactured vehicles and customers bought them. But I now find selling a car is an increasingly tough job due to competition with imported brands and evolutionary changes in customers’ tastes in vehicles,” he told The Korea Times in a recent interview.

Customers used to buy vehicles made by Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors out of patriotism. Seven out of 10 cars on the street are still made by these firms. But they increasingly buy cars according to their preferences, he said.

In Korea, GM Korea has sold a practical lineup composed of the mainstay Chevrolet brand, the large Alpheon sedan and the Damas and Labo mini car. It has recently launched the large Impala sedan to replace the Alpheon whose production will soon be halted.

Cho now works as electronics engineer at GM Korea in its main Buyeong plant. He was part of the assembly line for trucks for nearly 10 years after getting a job in Daewoo Motor in 1987. After being hit hard by the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, Daewoo Motor was taken over by the Detroit-based General Motors in the late 1980s and the name was changed into GM Daewoo.

Reflecting on his early years at GM Korea, Cho said, “Most workers didn’t need to speak English before GM’s acquisition. But English has become a daily language for most office workers and some assembly line workers for communication with managers from the U.S.”

There is a Starbucks Coffee outlet inside the Bupyeong plant, one of the signs which indicate who the owner of GM Korea is. During snack time in the late afternoon, employees and executives often order a pizza instead of Korean food.

“I feel the current system after the acquisition more organized and reasonable. I fulfil my duty and the company pays me,” said Cho. “But news reports about GM’s possible exit from Korea are often the biggest concern for assembly-line workers.”

In the January-August period, imported car sales jumped 23 percent to 158,739 year-on-year, according to the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association.