Strike: Lessons For Samsung From Hyundai

IPO bound HMIL, which is also from South Korea, had faced severe labour unrest for nearly a decade till the realisation -- a worker's union cannot be avoided -- dawned on it.

The South Korean electronics major Samsung India Electronics whose workers have been on strike for more than a month demanding collective bargaining rights as per the law can take a lesson or two from the experience of car major Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL), said union leaders in the car company.

The IPO bound HMIL, which is also from South Korea, had faced severe labour unrest for nearly a decade till the realisation -- a worker's union cannot be avoided and workers have to fight for their rights till the end and cannot expect external support for a long time -- dawned on it.

There are some similarities and dissimilarities between the labour unrest faced by HMIL in bygone years and Samsung now.

For starters, a majority of about 1,800 workers of Samsung India are on strike with various demands, the primary being the registration of the Samsung India Workers Union (SIWU) affiliated to the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) -- the labour arm of the CPI-M -- by the Tamil Nadu government.

The Tamil Nadu government declined to register SIMU within the stipulated time under the law and the latter went to court against the delay and later began to strike work.

It is said Samsung India had objected to the use of the word 'Samsung' in the name of the worker's union.

"We didn't have to face any issue in getting the Hyundi Motor India Employees Union (HMIEU) registered in 2007. It was a smooth affair. But the decision of the present state government will break the backbone of the trade union movement," a former leader of that union said, not wanting to be named.

"The names of over 90% of workers unions will have their company's name. This is for identification purposes. The company can object only if the union transacts some commercial business with its name."

Hyundai began building its plant at Irrungattukottai near Chennai in 1996 and rolled out the first Santro car in 1998.

However, Hyundai Motor India refused to recognise HMIEU that was affiliated to an outside organisation with political connections -- CITU/CPI-M.

The company insisted that it would talk only with the 'Workers Committee' -- a committee of selected workers is not a union -- and not with HMIEU.

Sometime in mid 2000, members of the Hyundai Motor India's Workers Committee approached CITU to form a union. The company management informally signaled that the company was comfortable with INTUC -- the trade union affiliated with the Congress -- and not with the labour wing of a Communist party, the former union leader said.

2008 and 2009 saw major strikes at Hyundai Motor India by HMIEU.

According to the former union official, it was then that the company management realised that such strikes should not recur and assigned an official to talk to the workers and get their views.

The workers were unanimous in their views of having a union to represent them.

Hyundai then agreed to have an internal worker's union, that is, not affiliated to any outside organisation.

According to officials, initially the move did not gain traction, but with the roping in of some HMIEU officials, the United Union of Hyundai Employees (UUHE) internal union came into being in 2011.

"A Korean official of the company in an informal chat said North Korea supports Communism while South Korea does not. Hence, they do not want anything to do with Communism," he recalled.

Slowly UUHE gained traction with the workers and now it is the major workers' union at Hyundai Motor India.

Since 2011, there has been no major agitation by Hyundai workers. Further, many of the striking workers who were dismissed were rehired and some were paid a handsome settlement amount.

During the initial days, the work used to be very strenuous. But later with the induction of robots in production in a major way the work load went down. Along with it the recruitment of permanent workers also went down, the unnamed official said.

"Since the formation of UUHE, four wage agreements have been inked and negotiations are on for the fifth which we expect to be concluded by January," C Chinnathambi, UUHE general secretary, said.

Apart from a wage hike, UUHE is demanding an increase in the retirement age by two years to 60.

About five/six workers retire every year and by 2030 about 60 workers would have retired. Some of them have children who are in college/school owing to their late marriage. After 2030 there will be a large number of retirees. Increasing the retirement age by two years can enable them to retire peacefully, Chinnathambi added.

Be that as it may, in the case of Samsung India, the workers decided to form a union only about 15 years after the factory began operational.

Apart from their demand of union registration by the Tamil Nadu government, the other demands like increasing the number of food items in the canteen, provision of air conditioned buses and others were basic demands that the company could have done on its own is the general view of the industry observors.

"Workers -- Samsung and others -- should realise that they have to stand up till the end for their rights, whether they have an internal union or a union affiliated to an outside organisation," Chinnathambi said.

One of the advantages of a worker union affiliated to an external organisation is that the latter brings in experience in negotiations, knowledge of labour laws which an average worker may not know.

When corporates are members of various industry lobby bodies, why not worker unions, is the question workers ask.

They also said there should be a law that mandates companies to negotiate with worker unions having majority membership.

As for the lessons from Hyundai's experience, the union officials said the state government should register SIWU as per the legal provisions and leave other matters to the company management and the workers.

The workers can decide whether they want an internal union or a body affiliated to the labour arm of a political party.

Venkatachari Jagannathan can be reached at venkatacharijagannathan@gmail.com