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“Hyundai violates fundamental rights”, reports the Company Union Network

3 April, 2014The international network of trade unions at Hyundai Motor today published a report detailing abuses of labour rights throughout the world. “Labour relations at Hyundai are more confrontational than at any other car manufacturer”.

The report entitled “Unfair Play” is an initiative of the international Hyundai/Kia trade union network. For IndustriALL affiliates in the network representing Hyundai workers local complaints and problems had become a common trend throughout the company.

Over recent years it had become clear that Hyundai’s company policy was to restrict trade union activities in the company’s operations everywhere, from Germany to Korea to the US. Regardless of the legal protection workers had from national labour law in their country, Hyundai management consistently used a range of tactics to impede its employees from exercising their right to freely organise and bargain collectively.

Today’s report authored by Carsten Hübner, jointly edited by IndustriALL and IG Metall, explains in depth the union response to Hyundai exporting its anti-democratic management culture throughout the world.

IndustriALL general secretary Jyrki Raina states in the report’s foreword:

Cooperation in a spirit of trust, to the benefit of the company and the employees, will never come about on this basis of blatantly disregarding workers’ rights. It is time for a paradigm shift at Hyundai! Launching negotiations on a global framework agreement at Hyundai and Kia could be the start of such a process.

All the unions in the network are fighting back to protect their members rights and working conditions at Hyundai. The trade union network jointly calls on Hyundai to negotiate in good faith with its social bargaining partners and begin a process of building constructive industrial relations together with the unions.

IG Metall will tomorrow lodge an OECD complaint with the German OECD National Contact Point. The complaint will be filed in defence of its members at Hyundai’s Rüsselsheim operation, HMETC, who have been targeted by a company smear campaign, intimidation and outright pressure to operate without a trade union or Works Council. The treatment is a clear breach of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.

Darmstadt Local IG Metall president Jochen Homburg explains the name of the report “Unfair Play”:

As an official partner of FIFA’s football World Cup 2010 Hyundai became very well known in Germany. And Hyundai will once again be a prominent sponsor of the World Cup 2014 in Brazil. However, a positive link between the brand image and such a sporting event can be created only if alongside the willingness to compete, the idea of fair play can also be put over convincingly.