Unionised workers at South Korea's largest automaker Hyundai Motor have agreed to the introduction of an additional work shift, settling a protracted dispute, company officials said Saturday.
The union at Hyundai Motor's plant at Jeonju, 243 km (152 miles) south of Seoul, and the company struck an accord Friday to replace the current daytime single shift with two shifts, including a night-time shift.
For Hyundai, the change in the work-shift system is imperative to meet increasing orders for buses and trucks produced in Jeonju. But workers have opposed the reform, asserting that it would worsen their working conditions. The 10-month-old talks were concluded after the company agreed to give some 500 dollars as a one-off bonus for each employee in return for the shift changes.
Hyundai wants to produce 70,000 commercial vehicles this year - up 150 percent from last year - and plans to increase that number to 140,000, including 90,000 exports, by 2010.
Strikes have become almost an annual rite at Hyundai since its union was launched in 1987 in the wake of a pro-democracy popular uprising. The accumulated working days lost due to walkouts since 1987 came to 323 as of the end of 2006, costing more than a million vehicles in lost production.
In 2006, strikes lasting 17 days cost 115,683 vehicles and 1.6 trillion won (1.7 billion dollars). The automaker faces a critical juncture, with its competitiveness being eroded by rivals and a strong won dampening exports, as well as high fuel prices and sluggish demand taking a toll on profits.
It may also face senior management changes this year as chairman Chung Mong-Koo stands trial on corruption charges. Hyundai's 2006 fourth-quarter net profit tumbled 22 percent to some 570 million dollars, hurt by a strong local currency and lost production from labour strikes. It sold a total of 191,231 units last month, down 5.9 percent from a year ago.
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