Posco begins five-day partial strike as HD Hyundai Heavy workers extend walkout to nearly a full workday
Labor unrest is intensifying across key South Korean manufacturing industries: Steelmaker Posco launched a partial strike Wednesday and shipbuilder HD Hyundai Heavy Industries extended its walkout to nearly a full workday.
The labor union at Posco launched a second round of partial strikes at 7 a.m. Wednesday, set to run for 120 hours until Monday. It follows just days after workers staged the first strike in the company’s 58-year history.
The latest action targets the No.2 hot-rolling mill at Posco’s Pohang steelworks and the No.4 hot-rolling mill at its Gwangyang complex, with about 120 workers participating in total.
Posco said production remains unaffected for now, as the company has deployed replacement workers to keep the affected lines running.
The escalation came after the two sides failed to narrow their differences during an eighth round of wage talks at Posco's headquarters on Tuesday. The company proposed continuing negotiations through Friday to reach a revised agreement on key issues, but the union decided to proceed with the planned walkout.
The action follows a 48-hour partial strike last week, the first industrial action to hit Posco’s production facilities since the company’s founding in 1968.
The union is demanding a 7.1 percent increase in base pay, a performance bonus equivalent to 600 percent of monthly wages, 50 Posco shares and a holiday bonus equivalent to 200 percent of monthly wages.
Management has offered a 2 percent increase in base pay, a 3.5 million won ($2,600) performance bonus and 500,000 won in local gift cards, leaving a wide gap.
Labor tensions also escalated at HD Hyundai Heavy Industries after the union expanded its partial strike to seven hours Wednesday.
The union instructed roughly 8,000 members to strike from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., amounting to nearly a full-day walkout.
The union launched its first company-wide strike of the year on Sept. 11, with a four-hour stoppage, and repeated the action Monday and Tuesday. Unless progress is made in wage and collective bargaining talks, it plans to escalate to seven-hour strikes each day through Friday.
The two sides have continued negotiations alongside the strikes, holding talks late into the evening, but have yet to reach a breakthrough.
The union seeks a 149,600 won increase in monthly base pay, a 100 percentage-point increase in bonuses and a profit-sharing scheme involving at least 30 percent of operating profit.
The company last week offered an increase of 110,000 won in monthly base pay, an incentive equivalent to 200 percent of base pay plus 10 million won and 500,000 won in gift certificates. The union rejected the offer, saying it fell short of workers’ expectations.
These disputes come at sensitive times for both companies.
Posco is grappling with declining profits as the global steel industry struggles with weak demand and persistent oversupply.
Posco’s operating profit in the first half of this year plunged 43.3 percent from a year earlier to 487.3 billion won, amid a prolonged downturn driven by oversupply from China and sluggish domestic demand.
For HD Hyundai Heavy, the risks are different but equally pressing as the company works through a large order backlog during a shipbuilding upcycle.
The shipbuilder secured $12.69 billion worth of commercial ship orders from January through July, already exceeding its full-year target of $11.47 billion. Its commercial shipbuilding backlog stood at $42.67 billion at the end of July.
So far, HD Hyundai Heavy has not reported production disruptions significant enough to require a public disclosure, but concerns are rising that a prolonged strike could delay construction and delivery schedules.
sahn@heraldcorp.com
