Hyundai strikers seek to top US pay rates

Forty thousand workers at South Korea's top carmaker, Hyundai, yesterday began a two-day strike for higher wages, heightening investor fears of another summer of union unrest.

The union is seeking a 10.5% wage rise and bonus of 30% of profit. This would lift average Korean car worker pay rates to the equivalent of $27 (£14.75) an hour. The average hourly pay rate at US car firms is $26. Wages in US and Japanese car plants are flat or rising slowly.

A combined 110,000 workers at Hyundai and smaller motor industry firms, textile companies, department stores and other workplaces downed tools yesterday, according to the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, which has 600,000 members.

The KCTU is also protesting against sending more troops to Iraq after the killing of a South Korean hostage by militants there last week. Korea's labour minister has urged unions not to link strikes to the deployment.

Analysts said they did not expect the current Hyundai strikes to be as violent or disruptive as some previous ones that took weeks to end. A dispute at Hyundai last year went on for 45 days.