19 December, 2011
The US-based United Autoworkers’ Union (UAW) exhibited exemplary trade union solidarity with the Korean Metal Workers’ Union (KMWU) recently when American autoworkers turned out to picket and handbill Hyundai auto dealerships in the US.
Customers at some 75 Hyundai dealerships on 30 November learned of the injustice afforded a contract worker at a Hyundai Motor Group factory in South Chungcheong province, who was sacked after she filed a sexual harassment lawsuit with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of Korea.
The UAW took on the mid-day action at Hyundai dealerships from California to New York to inform American car buyers of this contract worker’s current plight. The KMWU, affiliated to the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), is championing the 45-year-old woman’s case especially after the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service, in investigating the complaint, inexplicably added to the harassment in outrageous questioning of the woman.
Hyundai claims it is not responsible for liability, since the 14-year service worker was employed by Glovis, a symbiotic contractor of Hyundai. Among other forms of harassment in 2010, the woman had received inappropriate text messages and late night telephone calls from supervisors.
Following the NHRC awarding her compensation of nine million won (US$7,725), Glovis fired her and has since refused to pay her the penalty. The woman has been holding a protest vigil in Seoul since June of this year.
Said UAW President Bob King, “The UAW has embraced a global vision of social justice and will mobilize its membership to defend labour rights here and in other parts of the world.”