Hyundai Motor workers break from company union

Park Yoo-gi, chairman of Hyundai Motor’s labor union

Labor moves to industry-wide representation to gain more leverage

Unionized workers of Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea’s top automaker, voted last week to be represented by another branch of the large umbrella Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, breaking with their company’s union group in a bid for more negotiating power.

On Thursday, 71.5 percent of its 28,950 members voted to separate from the Hyundai Motor division of the large umbrella group and be put under the control of the smaller but more powerful Federation of Korean Metal Workers, an industrial division which has the authority to call an industry-wide strike.

The decision marks a turning point in the South Korean labor movement in that the move is expected to strengthen the labor union’s hand in negotiations with management at Hyundai Motor Co.

At the center of the move is Park Yoo-ki, chairman of Hyundai Motor’s labor union. Park, 41, was named to lead the 44,000-strong unionized workers of Hyundai in December of last year. The decision to become a member of the Federation of Korean Metal Workers was one of his main campaign pledges.

"For the past 18 years, I have engaged in the labor movement based on individual companies, so I have felt the fear among workers over the uncertain future of new industry-based labor activities," Park said in a recent telephone interview with the Hankyoreh.

"To relieve these fears, I have focused on explaining how things would unfold in an era of an industry-based labor movement," Park added.

Park said that he pushed for the union’s separation from the company group and inclusion into the Federation of Korean Metal Workers Trade Unions since he felt there are limits imposed on individual labor movements within a large conglomerate.

"A unionized worker at a large conglomerate risks being estranged even among their colleagues if he is seen as attempting to fatten his own pockets. The sense of crisis has been significant among unionists that all of us could be swept away by a much bigger wave of change, such as the relocation of factories, changes in labor rules, or massive layoffs if we continue to stay complacent [given current conditions]," Park said.

"Unionized workers have come to the agreement that there is no future for us within the so-called ’large factory selfishness.’ " he added.

Asked if Hyundai Motor’s unionized workers would give up their own profits to push for industry-wide causes, Park took a reserved stance, saying only that industry-based labor activities are the way to go.

Still, there is a long way to go before controversies over industry-based labor movements simmer down, experts noted. Opinions have also been divided over whether there should be a unified labor organization that would represent both regular and contract workers.