Seoul: Unionised workers at Kia, South Korea‘s second-biggest carmaker, have voted to accept the company’s wage proposals without a strike for the first time in a decade.
Kia said 68 percent of 26,945 workers voted in favor of wage offers that include an increase of 75,000 won ($64.30) in monthly basic pay, two months of wages in performance-based pay and cash bonuses worth 5.8 million won.
More than 1,600 out of the 28,604-member union abstained, reports Yonhap news agency.
But Kia rejected the union’s demand to extend the retirement age to 65 from the current 60 and reinstate fired workers.
The company and the member union reached a tentative wage deal early this week without staging a strike amid the pandemic.
It is the first time for Kia to sign a wage deal without industrial actions.
They are set to sign the wage agreement Monday.
Last month, its bigger affiliate Hyundai Motor Co. and its union signed this year’s wage deal without strikes for the third consecutive year.
Hyundai Motor and Kia form Hyundai Motor Group, the world’s fifth-largest automotive group.
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“Our first priority right now is to overcome supply chain challenges… The first step is to come back to normal and achieve a target of two lakh units in the domestic market and about 50,000 units in exports so that we can hit the 2.5 lakh sales mark during the year (FY22). This is our short term goal,” Kia India Vice-President and Head (Sales and Marketing) Hardeep Singh Brar told PTI in an interaction.