How one of the world's strongest car unions is dealing with EV job losses
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In Japan, the heads of Toyota Motor Corp., the country’s largest employer with close to 381,000 staff, are grappling with how the carmaker’s technological transformation will impact not only its workers but the nation’s vast auto supply chain and the thousands of jobs it supports.
In South Korea, Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp.’s moves toward electrification are provoking similar anxieties in that country’s highly active and organized labor movement.
Hyperdrive sat down in Seoul last week with officials from the Korean Metal Workers’ Union, which represents roughly 180,000 auto workers, including about 70,000 at Hyundai and Kia, the country’s two dominant manufacturers.
The union, formed in 2001, is in the process of negotiating a new annual contract for Hyundai’s vehicle assembly workers and it’s threatened to strike over disagreements on future hiring plans and sharing the spoils of Hyundai’s record profits in 2023.
The conflict has clear echoes of the contentious six-week strike between the United Auto Workers union and the Detroit Three carmakers last fall.
Last week was also the week that at least 23 people, mostly migrant workers from China, died in a fire caused by explosions at a lithium battery plant south of Seoul. The fire, at a factory owned by Aricell, which makes products for industrial and military applications, was the worst accident at a battery
