Hyundai Korea Workers have gone on strike again. This could have a huge impact on inventory that American dealers will have to offer their customers. Automotive News reports that some of Hyundai’s most popular models could be in short supply as a result of the strike. Dealers should keep this in mind in their advertising strategies as well as the composition of their allocation in the (hopefully) short-term.
Hyundai is one of the up and coming products, continuing to grow in popularity in the United States with some believing that it could be the next “Toyota”.
This strike is another example of the problems that the labor unions can have on the imports of vehicles from Korea. Ideally, Korea will improve its relations with its workers to avoid the effect it can have on our dealers here in the U.S.
Keep an eye out on the status of this labor shortage and plan accordingly if you are a Hyundai dealer in the U.S. Hopefully it will be a short-term problem.
Please see the article from Automotive News below for more important information about this development.
EUROPE LABOR
Hyunjoo Jin
Reuters
July 14, 2016 11:29 CET
SEOUL — Hyundai Motor’s unionized workers in South Korea voted to go on strike for a fifth year in a row after wage talks broke down, adding to the automaker’s troubles as it battles a sales slowdown.
A prolonged strike could hurt sales of high-demand cars such as the Tucson SUV as the company heads for an expected 10th consecutive drop in quarterly profit in the April-June period, weighed by an emerging market slowdown, analysts said.
Hyundai, the world’s fifth-biggest carmaker together with affiliate Kia Motors, posted a 0.9 percent fall in sales in the first half.
Union negotiators led by Park You-ki today decided to stage a partial strike for four days next week after 77 percent of Hyundai’s 48,806 unionized workers in South Korea approved the strike action, the spokesman said.
“The overwhelming support is a natural result of the anger of our 48,000 union workers,” the union said in a statement.
“A strike is an annual event for Hyundai Motor, but this is weighing on investor sentiment,” Eim Eun-young, an auto analyst at Samsung Securities, said.
The company has been hit by strikes in all but four of the union’s 29-year history. The automaker usually makes up for lost production later each year.
This year, the union is demanding a 7.2 percent rise in the basic monthly wage and performance pay totaling 30 percent of the automaker’s 2015 net profit.
Other demands include giving employees the right to refuse to be promoted so that they can maintain their union membership.
The company is pushing to freeze wages, revamp the wage structure and expand the so-called “peak-wage system,” the union said.
Citing ongoing business uncertainty, Hyundai said it expects that “the union would cooperate in reaching an agreement as soon as possible through a reasonable dialogue.”
Wages talks were underway at Kia and if the union failed to reach a deal it planned to hold a strike vote on Aug. 8, a union official said.
Courtesy-Automotive News Europe
This is an Advertisement:
If you find yourself faced with a labor issue at your car dealership, consider contacting my office. For more information: https://lexingtoncriminallawyer.com/automotive-law/
Follow us on 