GM Korea workers wage strike despite pandemic

While the automobile industry continues to face difficulties amid the pandemic, GM Korea’s labor union has decided to stage another three-day partial strike in protest against the management over wage and collective agreement negotiations, the automaker confirmed Thursday.

The GM Korea branch of the hard-line umbrella labor union the Korean Metal Workers’ Union held a central committee meeting on the day to draw up guidelines for the struggle, including partial strikes.

According to the union, workers in two groups will strike for four hours each on Friday this week, and again Monday and Tuesday next week.

They also decided to continue to refuse to work overtime, as they have since April 23.

Earlier, on Friday last week and Monday this week, the workers in the two groups did not work for four hours each.

GM Korea, suffering from a deficit, proposed to pay incentives of about 7 million won ($6,211) per worker over two years, but the union rejected the offer and stopped negotiations.

By Shin Ji-hye (shin@heraldcorp.com)