Hyundai Motor Company's GENESIS plant in Ulsan resumes operations after more than a day; union to enter man-hour talks

[Financial News] Line 1 at Hyundai Motor Company's Ulsan Plant No. 5 was shut down for more than 24 working hours before restarting at around 5 p.m. on the 3rd. This followed an agreement in principle that the company would not put a Genesis G80 Hybrid test vehicle on the line and that the union would enter man-hour talks.
Industry sources said on the 3rd that labor and management would renegotiate the workforce required ahead of mass production of the Genesis G80 Hybrid and refreshed Genesis G90. Line 1 at Ulsan Plant No. 5, which produces GENESIS vehicles, had been shut down since around 10 a.m. the previous day, the 2nd. It resumed operations at around 5 p.m. that day.
The dispute began over man-hour (MH) talks. Man-hours refer to the number of workers and the amount of labor required to build one vehicle. When a new model is introduced and the production process or workload changes, the workforce required may also need to be adjusted, making it a matter for labor-management negotiations.
Hyundai Motor Company sought to reach a man-hour agreement for mass production of the new model, but negotiations made no progress because union shop-floor representatives opposed it. When the company tried to put a Genesis G80 Hybrid test vehicle on the production line on the morning of the 2nd, union representatives at Plant No. 5 blocked it. The line shut down amid a clash between labor and management.
The line restarted on the 3rd after the company agreed not to put the test vehicle on the line and the union agreed to enter man-hour talks.
[email protected] Kim Dong-chan Reporter