Hyundai Irregular Workers’ Factory Occupation Ends after 25 Days

20 December 2010

On December 9, members of the Hyundai Motors Irregular Workers Chapter of the Korean Metal Workers Union KMWU left factory 1 of the Hyundai Plant in Ulsan. Their departure marked the end of a 25-day long occupation, which they had endured without adequate food, water or bedding.

Representatives from the Hyundai Motors Irregular Workers Chapter, the Hyundai Motors Local Branch regular workers, and the KMWU sat down with representatives from Hyundai Motors and its in-house subcontractors. In accordance with an agreement reached between the President of the Irregular Workers Chapter, Lee Sang-su, President of the Local Branch, Lee Gyeong-hun and President of the KMWU, they presented the following 4 demands: 1) Cancellation of damage suits and charges against workers who participated in the occupation, and payment of medical bills; 2) guarantee of reinstatement for those who participated in the occupation, 3) protection for strike leaders, and 4) a plan for negotiations concerning the regularization of illegal dispatch workers.

The occupation highlights issues that are of critical importance to the entire labor movement, the most significant being how to organize and build solidarity between regular and irregular workers.  This issue needs to be deeply debated within the labor movement so that unions can challenge this form of restructuring which divides workers and weakens the movement. 

Nonetheless, there have been important victories through this struggle. The consciousness and daring of a few irregular workers quickly spread throughout the Irregular Workers Chapter and from Ulsan to Asan to Jeonju. The hundreds who participated in the strike have been transformed through the experience, coming to recognizing their common cause and developing the power and courage to demand their right to be treated equally. They constructed and made use of democratic decision-making structures even in the midst of the cruel conditions of their factory occupation, and formed a still growing sense of class-consciousness. 

It is the power of class-consciousness and unity that makes struggle possible. The struggle, therefore, will surely go on.

This is an issue that is being debated widely on UnionBook : http://www.unionbook.org/group/transnationalcorporations/forum/topics/precarious-subcontracted