Unionized workers at Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's largest automaker, have voted to accept this year's wage agreement, which includes a 100,000 won ($73) increase in monthly base pay, the union announced Tuesday.

In a ballot held Monday, 61.55 percent of the 31,166 union members who participated approved the wage agreement reached between the labor union and the company, according to the union.

Under the deal, which was negotiated earlier, workers will also receive performance bonuses equivalent to 400 percent of their monthly wages, along with an additional 12.7 million won in cash.

The two sides additionally agreed in principle to extend the retirement age from the current 60 to 65, contingent on revisions to related laws and regulations. The proposed extension comes as South Korea faces a rapidly aging workforce, one of the world's lowest birth rates, and widespread labor shortages in manufacturing, an issue that has drawn growing attention across the country's industrial sector.

This year's agreement follows a series of strikes by the union that caused approximately 120 hours of production disruptions. The labor action included a full-day strike on Aug. 21, the union's first such walkout in a decade. Hyundai's union, one of the largest in the country's auto industry, has a long history of annual wage negotiations that in some years have involved partial walkouts.

According to industry sources, the strikes are estimated to have resulted in cumulative production losses of around 55,200 vehicles, with lost sales exceeding 2.3 trillion won. With the agreement ratified, attention now turns to whether the government and parliament move forward with the legal changes needed to implement the agreed retirement age extension, and to how next year's negotiations unfold. (Yonhap)

Source: Korea Herald Business