Hyundai rolls on amid global strike

NEW DELHI: India''s second largest car maker Hyundai Motor India on Monday announced that its operations have not been affected by the over a month long labour unrest at the South Korean parent, which was threatening to cripple its other overseas operations.
Hyundai, a company spokesman said, has already achieved 90 per cent localisation with its hatchback Santro and the mid-sized Accent.However, limited components for its Accent Viva, Accent Diesel CRDi and the luxury car Sonata are still imported from South Korea.
"But we have sufficient stock piles to keep the production going," a company spokesman said.
Meanwhile, international media reports cited Hyundai Motor, South Korea, as saying that factories in Russia, Egypt, Malaysia and Pakistan are being forced to suspend production, while operations in China, India and Turkey have to cut production by half as the Korean unit has virtually stopped supplying auto parts overseas.
"The plant in China has run out of main components such as engines and transmissions. Without the parts supply, it will have to stop production from early August," Hyundai Motor spokesman Jake Jang was cited as saying.
Jang said the plants in Turkey and India had more components in reserve than China but once the stockpiles run out they too would also face closure. But the India unit spokesman said, "Production at Hyundai Motor India is normal and there is no cut back."
Hyundai Motor union workers have staged half day and full day strikes since June 20 to push their demands for a shortened work week from six to five days and union participation in key management decisions. There was no immediate sign of labor unrest easing Monday, when Hyundai Motor''s main plant in the southern city of Ulsan, 400 km southeast of Seoul, remained idle.
Hyundai said all 39,000 workers at the Ulsan plant had taken one week summer vacation en masse as part of their protest.