Hyundai’s South Korean union has voted overwhelmingly in favour of conducting strike action, with 94% of its 39,668 members casting ballots and 86.6% supporting the measure—a mandate strong enough to authorise a legal walkout if the Central Labor Relations Commission suspends mediation, a decision expected on 25 June. The union and management have held 11 rounds of talks since May without narrowing their differences.

If the commission suspends mediation and the union secures the right to strike, its Central Strike Countermeasure Committee is expected to convene on 30 June to set a schedule. The union’s demands are substantial and include a KRW 149,600 (US$96.82) monthly base pay increase per worker, a performance bonus equal to 30% of last year’s net profit, an increase in bonuses from 750% to 800%, and an extension of the retirement age to 65. 

The net profit demand is the most commercially sensitive: Hyundai’s operating profit fell 19.5% in 2025 to KRW 11.46tr, and management has cited that deterioration as the basis for showing restraint. Thirty percent of net profit being redistributed back to employees would represent a significant cash commitment at a moment when the company is simultaneously funding accelerating initiatives into electrification, software development, and robotics.

The AI and robotics clause is, notably, the most structurally novel element of this year’s negotiations. The union is pushing for employment and income guarantees in anticipation of humanoid robot deployment—specifically citing Hyundai’s Atlas programme—and is demanding a fully salaried pay structure to protect members against future reductions in working hours driven by automation. Clearly, the union has concluded the robotics transition is not a far-off risk but something urgently requiring contractual protections.

A recent precedent set during union negotiations at Samsung Electronics has given Hyundai’s union additional leverage. Samsung agreed to distribute 10.5% of operating profit to its South Korean semiconductor employees as performance pay, providing a high-profile reference point which Hyundai’s union has explicitly cited in framing its own bonus demand. The comparison shifts the negotiation from an internal dispute into a broader national discussion about how South Korea’s industrial titans share profits with their domestic workforces.

The 86.6% approval rate gives the union more than simple momentum; it serves as a mandate that makes early capitulation by the leadership politically difficult. In previous years, the union secured the right to strike and then used that position to extract concessions in subsequent rounds without staging a full walkout. That pattern may repeat, but the scale of the unresolved demands—base pay, profit-sharing, and AI protections simultaneously—makes a quick provisional agreement harder to construct than in previous negotiations.

If it were to proceed, a strike at Hyundai’s South Korean plants would be the second consecutive year of industrial action, following partial stoppages in 2025 that were the first in seven years. The company produces vehicles at its Ulsan complex, the world’s largest single automotive manufacturing site, and at plants in Asan and Jeonju. Disruption at any of these sites would cascade throughout the supply chain and impact most of the global markets that Hyundai serves.