TU-TESL

• 22

(photo source: General Korea official website) according to foreign media reports, on October 11 local time, general Korea said it had different opinions with the labor union on salary, which led to the breakdown of the negotiation and would hold another negotiation at the beginning of next year. This year, GM South Korea and the labor union held a total of 10 rounds of wage negotiations, but failed to bridge their differences on the issue of wages. With 10000 members, the union said it would not hold talks with GM this year after the 10th round of talks on Thursday (October 10). Later this year, the Union will vote for a new leader, and GM expects to resume negotiations with the new leadership early next year. When asked about the official position of the broken negotiations and the expectation of the salary agreement, GM South Korea only said that it would continue to negotiate with the labor union to reach a fair and reasonable salary agreement on the basis of mutual respect and understanding. The Union has yet to comment on the matter. Workers are demanding a 5.7% increase in the basic monthly wage and a one-and-a-half-month performance salary and a 6.5 million won (39000 yuan) cash bonus for each employee. But GM rejected the request. The company said that it was difficult to accept the demands of the trade union due to the deteriorating business environment, the fact that the company was still in deficit and a combination of some other reasons. From January to September this year, the company's sales dropped 9.5% to 308933 from 341349 last year. During 2014-2017, the company had a net loss of 3130 billion won (about 18.7 billion yuan), and in 2018, the company had a net loss of 859 billion won (about 5.1 billion yuan). In addition, some and all-out labor strikes held by the labor union this year also reduced the company's car production by 20000 units. To boost sales, GM plans to launch 15 new cars to the South Korean market in the five years to 2023. Last year, GM launched equinox and upgraded spark small cars in South Korea; at the end of September, GM launched Colorado, a medium-sized pickup truck in South Korea; earlier this month, the company launched traverse in South Korea. In addition, in order to meet the growing demand for SUVs in the Korean market, GM is also considering launching a full-size SUV Tahoe in Korea. Currently, GM has three assembly plants in South Korea, two in Incheon (West of Seoul) and one in Changyuan (400 km from Seoul). The total capacity of these three factories is about 600000. Last May, GM shut down its Qunshan plant because of low utilization.