General Motors which continues to have a hard time with labour in South Korea, will have to renegotiate an initial labour deal after a majority of union members voted against it.
About 45% of members were in support of an agreement reached with union negotiators last week for each member to get a lump sum payment of 4 million won ($3,615) by early 2021, a union official said on Tuesday.
The union raised their demands this year as wages have been frozen since 2018, after the automaker received a state-backed rescue package to stay in the country.
GM has turned down employee demands to raise the retirement age by five years to 65 and to build more vehicles at one of its plants in South Korea.
Both have had dozens of rounds of negotiations since this year and GM’s South Korean workers staged two four-hour strikes daily during the 14 days of last month in protest.
That resulted in about 25,000 vehicles in lost production for the automaker, according to an official at GM’s Korea unit, which comes on top of some 60,000 units lost previously in the year because of the spread of the coronavirus.
About 34,652 people in South Korea have been confirmed as being infected with the coronavirus. The virus has killed 526 people in the country.
Last month, the automaker issued its strongest warning that the continued industrial unrest could drive it out of the country.
