Kia Motors Gwangju Casting Plant Finally Closes... About 90 Workers Reassigned to Complete Vehicle Line

Kia Motors Gwangju Plant Panorama

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyewon] Kia Motors' casting plant located in Gwangju is finally closing. This comes six months after the local government issued an administrative order to suspend operations last September due to failing an odor pollution inspection. The labor and management have agreed to transfer about 90 employees from this plant to Kia’s Gwangju assembly plants 1 to 3.

According to industry sources on the 17th, Kia has made a final decision to shut down the Hanam casting plant located in Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju. Initially, relocation of the plant was considered, but due to the lack of suitable alternatives, the company opted to outsource the work after closure.

The Hanam casting plant is a small-scale material factory producing automobile engine parts supplied to Hyundai Motors, but it suffered from collective complaints from the local community due to odor issues. After failing the odor pollution inspection last year, Gwangsan-gu issued an improvement order followed by an administrative suspension of operations, leading to a halt in production.

Kia invested approximately 9 billion KRW in odor reduction facilities to resolve the issue, but the situation did not improve significantly. Although relocation was pursued as a last resort, the lack of suitable sites, shortage of work, and union opposition caused the plan to fall through. Ultimately, labor and management reached a sudden agreement to transfer about 90 plant employees to positions vacated by retirees at Kia’s Gwangju finished vehicle plants, leading to closure instead of relocation. This marks the conclusion of the six-month-long issue surrounding the Gwangju plant.

Kia received transfer application forms from about 90 Hanam casting plant employees by the 13th. These employees are expected to be reassigned to Gwangju plants 1 to 3, which respectively produce the Seltos, Soul, Carens, Sportage, and Bongo models, as well as the Hanam military vehicle plant. They have been placed on standby at home for three weeks until the 3rd of next month. Although employees submitted their first to third preferred work locations, those not selected for their preferred departments will be reassigned to the HR team. A Kia official stated, "Last year, over 110 employees retired from the Gwangju plant, and labor and management agreed to rationalize processes through workforce reallocation without new hires."

The Kia Gwangju branch union stated in their newsletter on the same day, "We judged that the suspension of operations could not be resolved immediately under the condition that material plant volumes had been transferred years ago, and it would be irresponsible to insist on maintaining the status quo while leaving it as a future task. Although there are shortcomings, the union plans to link the utilization of the material plant site with the production of medium-sized military tactical vehicles to create a direction for future employment expansion."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.