Kia's South Korean Workers Vote To End Strike
Just days after South Korean workers ended a strike at Hyundai, autoworkers at the Korean automaker’s Kia affiliate approved a wage hike to return to the factory line. That means Hyundai-Kia’s overseas strike lasted a grand total of three weeks.
Kia told Bloomberg News on Sept. 12 that the strike cost 23,271 cars in lost global production as of Sept. 11. It’s unclear how many of those cars were bound for the U.S, but an analyst told us more than 40% of Hyundai-Kia models sold in the U.S. come from South Korea — as opposed to the automaker’s plants in Alabama and Georgia, which were unaffected by the strike. Still, Kia’s U.S. inventory (both imported and domestically produced) on Sept. 1 stood at 51 days, according to Automotive News — up from 44 days in August and close to the industry’s 54-day September average.
This summer’s strike was shorter than Hyundai-Kia’s 2012 strike, which lasted from July to September. Kia estimates its continually rocky labor relationships have resulted in nearly 400,000 cars lost to strikes since 2002, Bloomberg reports.
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