BriefZip

The first office and technical staff union in the history of Hyosung Heavy Industries, a South Korean maker of power equipment, began a 72-hour warning strike on Nov. 4. The strike is scheduled to run through Nov. 6. The union wants a 10% increase in base pay, clear rules for paying bonuses and a smaller gap in benefits between job groups. The company says the union walked away from talks before even looking at its wage offer, and that it will respond according to the law and its principles. The company also says its main factory will keep running because production workers are not part of the strike. The dispute involves a company that makes equipment used to move electricity from power plants to cities, factories and data centers. Who is Hyosung Heavy Industries? Hyosung Heavy Industries is part of the Hyosung group, one of South Korea's family-controlled business groups. Its heavy industries division makes power equipment such as transformers and circuit breakers, and the c...

Samsung Biologics, a South Korean contract drugmaker, has asked its labor union to push back wage and collective bargaining talks that were scheduled to start on Nov. 3 by two weeks . The union rejected the idea and said it would go ahead with the industrial action it had already planned. Why the company wants a pause Samsung Biologics makes biologic drugs on behalf of other pharmaceutical companies. The two sides agreed on Oct. 28 to resume talks in the first week of November. The company says that on Oct. 30 the union demanded, in an official letter, that the company's lead negotiator be removed and replaced. It also says the union kept up pressure by preparing a strike and turning to its umbrella labor federation while talks were being arranged. The company said holding talks under those conditions would further damage trust, and proposed a two-week cooling-off period. It added that it was ready to resume talks during the two weeks if the union stopped its pressure and reque...