Hyundai Heavy Industries Union Occupies Crane, Begins High-Altitude Sit-in... Announces Full-Day Strike for Four Consecutive Days

On the morning of the 6th, union members are staging a high-altitude protest by occupying a turnover crane at Hyundai Heavy Industries Ulsan headquarters in Dong-gu, Ulsan. [Image source=Hyundai Heavy Industries Union]

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] The Hyundai Heavy Industries labor union launched a full-scale strike on the 6th.

As wage and collective bargaining negotiations have been stagnant for the past two years, they began an all-day strike from the morning of that day, occupying cranes and starting a high-altitude sit-in protest.

The Hyundai Heavy Industries branch of the Korean Metal Workers' Union announced that it would conduct an 8-hour all-day strike for all union members starting at 8 a.m. that day.

About 10 union members, including branch chief Jo Kyung-geun, climbed a 40-meter-high turnover crane at the Ulsan headquarters and are staging a sit-in protest.

Approximately 800 union members held a rally under the crane, and the union is conducting a tent sit-in protest in front of the union office.

A Hyundai Heavy Industries union official said, "We climbed the crane and carried out an occupation sit-in with the determination to fight to the end to protect the survival rights of union members."

He claimed, "We have been negotiating for the past two weeks with the determination of a full-scale strike, but the company only repeated that there was nothing more to offer."

The union plans to continue the full-scale strike until the 9th.

Since the second tentative agreement on the two-year wage collective agreement for 2019 and 2020, prepared by labor and management, was rejected on April 2, negotiations between labor and management have made no progress for more than three months.

Two tentative agreements were prepared in February and April, but union members rejected them in approval votes, saying they could not accept the freeze on base pay.

The main contents of the first tentative agreement prepared by labor and management included a 40,600 KRW wage increase in 2019 including seniority increments, a performance bonus of 218% of the agreed wage, a consolation payment of 100% plus 1.5 million KRW, welfare points of 300,000 KRW, a freeze on base pay in 2020, a performance bonus of 131% of the agreed wage, and a consolation payment of 2.3 million KRW.

The second tentative agreement added a special incentive payment of 2 million KRW for the development of the shipbuilding industry to the first agreement.

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