Hyundai Motor, labour union tentatively reach wage agreement

Seoul, Aug 25 (IANS) The management and labour union of Hyundai Motor tentatively reached a wage agreement on Tuesday following a series of strikes that caused production disruptions.

The two sides reached an understanding at the 17th round of talks, agreeing to raise monthly base pay by 100,000 won (US$72.20), provide a performance bonus of more than 400 percent of monthly salary and pay an additional payment of 12.5 million won, the automaker said in a release.

The two sides also agreed to extend the retirement age from the current 60 to 65 if related laws and regulations are revised, reports Yonhap news agency.

If the agreement is approved in a union vote scheduled for Aug. 31, this year’s wage negotiations at South Korea’s largest automaker will be concluded.

The 400,000-member union staged a combined 60 hours of strikes this year, resulting in about 120 hours of production disruptions across two shifts. The labor action included a full-day strike Friday, the union’s first such walkout in 10 years.

The strikes are estimated to have caused cumulative production losses of around 55,200 vehicles, with lost sales exceeding 2.3 trillion won, according to industry sources.

Hyundai Motor said management and the labour union also shared the view that adopting advanced technologies, including physical artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, is essential to the company’s future competitiveness and survival.

“The two sides agreed to transparently share information on new projects and their implementation processes, and jointly respond to future changes in the industry,” the company said.

The agreement comes as Hyundai Motor, which owns Boston Dynamics, the developer of the Atlas humanoid robot, plans to deploy humanoid robots at its U.S. manufacturing plant in Georgia starting in 2028, with plans to gradually expand their use across its other production facilities.

—IANS

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