[서울신문] GM Korea’s’Start of Normalization’, which concluded a labor agreement at the end of thousands of years

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▲ On the 20th, the labor and management of GM Korea visited the Changwon plant in GM Korea and comprehensively reviewed the investment situation in the Changwon plant for the next generation of global new products. The photo shows GM Korea’s labor and management group (from the right, Kazem Kaher, GM Korea President, Kim Sun-hong, Changwon Business Headquarters, and Kim Seong-gap, head of the GM Korea Branch of the Metal Workers’ Union) visited the construction site of a new painting factory in the Changwon plant to check the site safety and construction progress. Doing it.
Provided by GM Korea

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The labor and management of GM Korea concluded wage and collective bargaining in five months. The worst situation was avoided by succeeding in a settlement without a year later. It is also expected to gain momentum in normalization of management.

On the 18th, GM Korea’s union announced on the 18th that it was passed with a 54.1% approval rate as a result of the second temporary agreement on the provisional agreement with 7304 members. Previously, GM Korea’s labor and management prepared the first provisional agreement after four months of negotiations on the 25th of last month, but the approval rate was only 45.1% in the vote for the union members on the 1st.

The first provisional agreement contained the contents that the management would pay 4 million won, including a lump sum and an incentive wage of 3 million won per member, and a special encouragement of 1 million won over the Corona 19 crisis, and extend the production schedule of the Bupyeong 2 plant as much as possible. After the rejection of the first provisional agreement, GM Korea President Kaher Kazem issued a speech and said, “I am very concerned that customers’ trust and trust in the export market are increasingly lost due to continuous production losses and uncertainties in the process of labor-management negotiations.” He asked for active support so that this year’s wage collective bargaining could be completed without conflict with the government.”

The labor and management prepared a second provisional agreement on the 10th and voted for and against the members over two days on the 17th and 18th. The second agreement further reflected the demands of the union, including the fact that the management would withdraw the lawsuit for damages filed against the union and increase the discount rate when employees buy vehicles. Most of the contents of the existing agreement, including the provision to pay a total of 4 million won, including the Corona 19 encouragement money, were retained. The COVID-19 special encouragement money, which was decided to be paid in half in the first quarter of next year, will be paid immediately after the agreement is reached, and the assembly line allowance will be increased from March 1 next year to immediately after the agreement.

On July 22, the labor and management of GM Korea began negotiations for collective bargaining. The two sides had a total of 26 negotiations, but they showed differences of opinion on the negotiation proposal, and the union held a partial strike for a total of 15 days.

GM Korea is planning to speed up the normalization of management as it concludes the negotiations for the collective bargaining agreement on this day. Immediately after the member vote passed, the management issued a statement and said, “We are happy to be able to finalize the labor-management negotiations within this year.” “We will continue to carry out the business normalization plan in the future.”

However, it is expected that a disruption in the supply of exports will inevitably resulted in the loss of production of 25,000 units due to the dispute of the union. It will take some time to recover from the decline in sales.

Total production loss this year amounted to 85,000 units, adding 60,000 units in the first half. This is equivalent to 20% of the total sales of GM Korea last year. According to the Korea Automobile Industry Association, GM Korea’s automobile production in November decreased by 45.7% from last year due to the impact of a union strike.

On the other hand, the Kia Motors union, which had a partial strike for four consecutive weeks until this day, plans to set forth the guidelines for the struggle after negotiating one more time with the management on the 21st. The labor and management of Kia Motors held 15 main negotiations after the first meeting in August, but could not narrow the disagreement, and the union held a partial strike for a total of 14 days. The resulting production loss is estimated to be about 45,000 units.

Reporter Lee Young-jun [email protected]

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