By Kim Yon-se
Staff Reporter
President-elect Lee Myung-bak said companies that have lost the trust of their employees will find it difficult to be successful, during a visit to an automotive manufacturing factory.
In his visit to GM Daewoo Auto & Technology's plant in Bupyeong, Incheon, Tuesday, Lee said he wishes more Korean companies benchmark the GM Daewoo case which has become a good model for desirable labor-management relations of the country.
Lee said, ``I think GM Daewoo, which is showing favorable relations between labor and management, is quite different corporate culture from other companies,'' stressing that gloomy outlook for companies which lost ``confidence'' by workers is inevitable.
``The most important thing is that companies have to gain trust among employees,'' said Lee, a former CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction.
General Motors, once the symbol of U.S. manufacturing prowess, have closed some of its North American factories to save itself from industrial collapse. Its subsidiary in Korea is hiring back workers who were laid off in the process of taking over Daewoo Motor Sales in 2001.
When GM Daewoo dismissed 1,725 employees under its restructuring program seven years ago, it promised to give them the opportunity to return after the company's management conditions were normalized. The company made good on its promise, by reinstating about 1,000 of the 1,725 laid-off employees in 2005.
The automaker is providing the rest of the dismissed employees with a chance to get back on the payroll.
Its responsible treatment of unionized workers contrasts well with other foreign speculative funds aimed only at short-term gains, such as the cases of SK Corp.-Sovereign Asset Management and Korea Exchange Bank-Lone Star Funds.
Lee's visit to the automaker was unheralded. The schedule was arranged after the transition team abruptly canceled the first planned face-to-face talks between Lee and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), a labor umbrella group.
The meeting was to be held on Tuesday at the union's headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul, to share ideas on some key labor issues including temporary workers, and to seek a substantial breakthrough.
But the transition team unilaterally announced that the scheduled meeting could not take place unless the KCTU chief, Lee Seok-haeng, accepted a police request to report to them for questioning.