South Corea - Hyundai Says 82 Employees Injured in Clash With Activists

Hyundai Motor Co. (005380), South Korea’s largest automaker, said 82 employees at its biggest assembly plant were hurt in a clash with labor activists demanding better conditions for temporary workers. The three-hour dispute on July 20 between activists from the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, an umbrella group of labor unions, and security guards and managers caused about 2.2 billion won ($2 million) in damage, Seoul-based Hyundai said in an e-mail yesterday.
About 100 people were injured in total, the trade union said in a statement on its website. Workers at Hyundai, the subject of periodic wage protests including an August 2012 walkout that cost the company a record 1.7 trillion won in lost production, weren’t part of the activist group in the brawl. Some members of the group tried to use force to enter the plant in Ulsan, throwing bamboo sticks and stones at Hyundai security personnel, who used fire hoses to keep them at bay, the automaker and labor body said.
The activists demanded Hyundai convert all 6,800 of its temporary workers, hired by subcontractors, into regular employees to enjoy better benefits and pay. The carmaker said in December that it will convert 3,500 workers by the first half of 2016, an offer that was rejected by the union