42 thousand workers in 3 Hyundai factories in South Korea are compact strike

September 4, 2025
2:21 PM

Jakarta, huutoanland Indonesia
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Hyundai
In the middle of having a strike problem in three factories in South Korea (South Korea) over the past week.The factory trade union went on strike to voice three main things, namely salary increases, pruning hours of working and the addition of retirement age.
A total of 42 thousand union members agreed to strike for two hours on September 3-4 and four hours on September 5, 2025. Three locations that were targeted for protests included the Hyundai factory in Jeonju, Asan, and the Central Factory in Ulsan.
Regarding wages, they demanded a monthly salary increase per month by 141,300 won or around Rp1.6 million (exchange rate of Rp11 per 1 Won), plus the allocation of 30 percent of the company’s net profit to special performance allowances.
In addition they also demanded a reduction in working hours from 5 days to 4.5 days a week, as well as an extension of retirement age from originally 60 years to 64 years.
The agreement between workers to strike was taken after the failure of the last negotiations with management on Tuesday (2/9).The company has offered salaries, bonuses and benefits in this negotiations, but the nominal is considered not to meet the expectations of workers.
Therefore, workers conducted internal voting and the results were 86 percent of members agreed to carry out a strike until the demands were met.
This full strike was the first time since the last 7 years.Because it targets the Hyundai key factories, this action is expected to have an impact on the production chain.
The Ulsan factory is the largest single car factory in the world, has its own pier, and produces various models ranging from Elantra, Palisade, Ioniq 5, to Genesis luxury cars such as the G70, G80, G90, and the GV70 and GV80 SUVs.
While the Jeonju factory specifically produces commercial vehicles, while the Asan factory makes sedans such as Sonata, Grandeur, Ioniq 6, and Ioniq 9.
Based on local media reports, The Korea Times, this mass strike is said to give financial burden to the company.As a comparison, in the 2016 Hyundai worker strike action, the company lost around 2.5 trillion Won (around Rp29.4 trillion) for stopping production activities for 166 hours.
Actually in July last year Hyundai had raised the salary of its factory workers by 4.65 percent which even became the biggest increase during the company.So, what makes the trade union back and still demands a salary increase?
Workers want their salary increase rights after seeing Hyundai’s sales record data in the United States market.This record was recorded thanks to one of the main factors regarding the sale of electric cars.
Hyundai’s sales volume in August 2025 rose 12 percent to 88,523 units at the same time marked the growth of sales figures for 11 consecutive months.
“August is an extraordinary month for us, with retail sales and total sales far beyond the previous record. We are very proud of the achievement of records from key models such as Elantra Hev, Palisade, and Ioniq 5 which continues to receive a warm welcome from customers,” said Randy Park, CEO of Hyundai Motor North America, in a statement on Wednesday (3/9).
(Fea/Fea)
[Gambas: huutoanland video]