Recently, the labor and management of HD Hyundai Heavy Industries held the first meeting of the “2025 salary negotiation” at the Ulsan headquarters. Heads of both labor and management sides of HD Hyundai Heavy Industries attended the meeting. During the meeting, the labor and management sides introduced their negotiation committees respectively and discussed matters such as the future negotiation schedule.
It is reported that the labor and management of HD Hyundai Heavy Industries conduct salary and collective agreement negotiations involving wages and collective agreements in even-numbered years, and salary negotiations involving wages in odd-numbered years.
HD Hyundai Heavy Industries related personnel said, “This year, it is necessary to compensate for the improvement in performance as well as to consider future investments for continued growth, and we hope that labor and management will brainstorm and complete the negotiations as soon as possible in order to focus more on operations.”
For its part, the labor union said, “The union and the company should be open-minded, based on trust, in order to finalize negotiations as soon as possible.”
The core issues of this year’s negotiations are expected to include basic salary increases and the size of incentive payments (one-time bonuses).
On April 22, the HD Hyundai Heavy Industries Labor Union has submitted the “Demand for Salary Negotiation in 2025” to the employer, which includes an increase in basic salary by 141,300 won (about $102.50, excluding the portion of seniority promotion), extension of retirement age, increase of seniority allowance, modification of the standard for calculating the performance bonus, allocation of a special budget for expanding the rest and recuperation facilities, and improvement of treatment for the unofficial employees.
With the shipbuilding industry continuing to boom, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries has accumulated workload for the next 3 to 4 years. Therefore, both labor and management agree that salary increases are necessary during the prosperous period.
However, the union hopes to focus on raising the base salary, which serves as the benchmark for various allowances, while management is likely to center negotiations around incentive payments that can flexibly adapt to order volumes and global economic factors.
In addition to salary increases, there are also disagreements between labor and management on issues such as extending the retirement age (up to 65 years) and hiring new employees for production positions. Both sides have set a goal to conclude this year’s negotiations by the end of July.
In 2024, after multiple rounds of negotiations, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries’ labor and management ultimately agreed to raise the base salary (including rank promotion adjustments) by 130,000 KRW (about $94.42). During the talks, due to severe disagreements between the two sides, the union staged 24 partial strikes and even physical clashes occurred.
This year, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries’ labor and management are expected to engage in intense negotiations over issues including wage increases.