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Workers at the Hyundai Motor plant in Chennai

Workers at Hyundai Motor’s plant in Chennai, a city in southern India, are refusing to eat the lunches the company provides to protest the lack of progress toward a wage settlement with management, the Indian press reported.

According to Jan. 16 reports by local newspapers including Indian daily the Business Standard and sources from labor and management, more than 10,000 workers at Hyundai’s plants in India have been boycotting lunch since last week in protest of the delay in collective bargaining for wages. The factory is staffed by a mixture of regular employees, irregular employees on contracts, and trainees.

The workers at the factory have been negotiating their wages with management for ten months now, since Apr. 2018, but have failed to make much headway. Hyundai’s factory in India holds collective bargaining for wages once every three years.

“In addition to the issue of the delay in the wage settlement, the company has been using trainees to replace skilled workers,” workers told the local press.

Around 80% of the 10,000 workers on the assembly line at the plant of Hyundai Motor’s Indian branch are irregular workers. The numbers break down into 2,200 regular workers, 5,000 irregular workers on contract, and 3,500 trainees. The dispute between labor and management at this factory has been simmering for seven years now.

Between 2008 and 2012, the factory suffered from sit-ins and strikes by its workers. The workers were striking in a push for higher wages, the reinstatement of fired workers, and the recognition of a labor union for irregular workers.

Hyundai Motor’s India branch offered the following response: “After completing a year of focused training under strict management and supervision on the production line, trainees enter the hiring phase. We do not hire unskilled workers for our production line.”

“The workers appear to be refusing to eat lunch in a bid to pressure management and gain the upper hand in the wage negotiations. This differs from a strike, which would interfere with production,” said a spokesperson at the main office of Hyundai Motor.

“The workers have agreed to end their lunch hunger strike and continue negotiations with company management next week,” the spokesperson added.

India is the site of Hyundai Motor’s first overseas plant, which handles 14% of the company’s global production volume. Hyundai built its first factory in India in 1998, in Chennai, in the state of Tamil Nadu, with a yearly manufacturing capacity of 300,000 units. This was followed by a second factory in 2008, with a yearly capacity of 350,000 units. Last year, the company’s cumulative total of vehicles manufactured in India exceeded the 8 million mark.

A total of nine models are produced at the plant, including the Santro and i10, which are a subcompact and compact.

By Hong Dae-sun, staff reporter

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