hankyoreh

a dismissed Hyundai Motor irregular worker

By Kim So-youn, staff reporter and Sin Dong-myeong, Ulsan correspondent

The Hyundai Motor labor union called a halt to dialogue with the company’s management after the automaker gave notice that is going through with the hiring of in-house subcontracting workers as new regular employees during negotiations on the conversion of illegal dispatch workers to regular employee status.

Observers are now expecting that a sit-in protest on a transmission tower by workers demanding a status change for all in-house subcontracting employees will continue indefinitely. The workers have been up on the tower since Oct. 17, more than sixty days.

According to Dec. 17 accounts from the Hyundai Motor union and management, the company put up a notice on Dec. 14 stating that it was taking on in-house subcontracting workers from its Ulsan, Asan, and Jeonju factories as new hires. It is taking applications through Dec. 28 for an estimated 420 new jobs.

The Hyundai Motor chapter of the Korean Metal Workers’ Union, which represents regular employees at the automaker, responded vigorously by taking down all of the notices within the factories and sending an announcement to management on Dec. 17 giving notice that the talks were off.

“By going ahead with the new hires [which the union opposes] during negotiations, they are saying that they have no intention of engaging in any dialogue,” a union official said. “If they don’t cancel the plan, then we have no choice but to halt negotiations and take action.”

The union is reacting so strongly because new hiring is at the heart of the negotiations. The regular and temporary workers’ unions are demanding that the company acknowledge the illegality of the use of all 7,700 in-house subcontracting workers on its production line and convert them to regular status in compliance with the law. The company is maintaining that only Choe Byeong-seung, the subcontracting worker who won his case before the Supreme Court, has been recognized as illegally employed, and plans to hire on 3,500 of the subcontracting workers as new regular employees through 2016.

The matter of whether the workers are converted to regular status or newly hired as regular employees has been the focus of an intense conflict between the two sides.

Why did the automaker suddenly decide to go ahead with the new hires? Many analysts said its aim was to weaken the temporary workers’ union. If 420 of the workers are given new positions, union members hoping to earn regular status are likely to apply en masse, which would sap much of the organization’s strength.

An official with the temporary workers’ union reported hearing about subcontracting companies telling their workers they had to sign forms pledging their opting out of the union and pledging to refrain from any litigation to have their Hyundai Motor employee status recognized while passing out applications for new employment.

“Hyundai Motor is using petty tactics to destroy the union while superficially pretending to be engaging in dialogue,” the official said.

Some observers also say the aim is to cover up the illegality of the workers’ employment. There is a strong chance the newly hired workers will be placed in the temporary positions where they worked alongside regular workers in order to erase the taint of illegality. Hyundai Motor believes the system in which regular workers and in-house subcontractor employees worked side-by-side was one of the key reasons for the Supreme Court decision.

An official with Hyundai Motor said the company was implementing the hires pledged in a collective agreement with the workers, including terms for compulsory retirement.

“The company is hiring because it needs workers. The hiring was put off because of the negotiation,” the official explained. “The irregular workers’ union keeps persisting with the unreasonable demand that all the employees be converted to regular status, but we can’t afford to wait any longer.”

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