The court’s decision is a signal that we are in the right, we will persevere until the end, says a trade unionist on the Nexen strike – A2larm
At the South Korean tire manufacturing company Nexen Tire’s factory near Žatec, part of the employees went on strike on Tuesday morning, stopping the operation of the factory. Long-term negotiations between the unions and company management regarding the collective agreement were unsuccessful, therefore the local Basic Organization of the KOVO Nexen Tire Trade Union decided to declare an indefinite strike. The plant in the Triangle industrial zone between Žatec and Louny is the first that the company has set up outside of Asia, and employs just over a thousand people. The production of the company is up to 11 million tires per year. According to the union, salaries have not been raised at Nexen Tire for the last four years, the starting salary of a production operator is 22,700 crowns. Among other things, the unions demand a six percent increase for 2023.
“For more than three and a half years, we have been trying to negotiate a collective agreement in this company. In September 2021, the agreement was almost ready to be signed, but the representatives of the Korean management refused to sign it,” said OS KOVO chairman Roman Ďurčo at the press conference, who also mentioned that the employer considers the strike illegal and wants to order mandatory overtime for non-striking employees.
Nexen trade unionists saw Korean management for the first time in four years, having never dealt with them before.
The chairman of the local trade union, Pavel Rohel, described that the negotiations on the collective agreement lasting almost four years were lengthy and the management deliberately dragged them out. “In September 2021, the collective agreement was done and it was toothless because we gave way to the employer in the time of covid. Nevertheless, she was arrogantly swept off the table. No one from the Korean side ever came to the meeting, there was never anyone competent to answer our questions: ‘Yes, we can, we are capable of it’, we always only heard the answers: ‘No, we don’t know, it’s not possible’.” Rohel described years of negotiations.
Overtime as a weapon against strikes
In order for the employees to go on strike, they had to meet the legal conditions – the announcement of a strike is actually only at the stage of the dispute over the conclusion of a collective agreement. Indeed, the law allows the use of a strike only when the parties have unsuccessfully negotiated before the mediator. The strike must also be properly announced and enough employees must agree to it. The last meeting that could have averted the strike took place on Monday afternoon, but the employer’s representatives refused to act. Even before the strike began, the chairman of the local trade union, Pavel Rohel, pointed out that the employer was persuading employees to work overtime, if possible, in order to replace non-working striking employees.
According to the law, working overtime is only possible in exceptional cases. The employer cannot solve insufficient personnel security (“base”), for example due to a strike, by scheduling the employee’s working hours in advance in a range higher than the set weekly working hours of the employee. The employer can order overtime work only to the extent of 8 hours per week. “If the employer also requires additional overtime work beyond the set limit, it can only be negotiated with the employee. to ask all employees that in the event that the employer wants to replace the striking work with overtime work, we want our common demands and refuse such work,” Rohel warned his colleagues on Facebook before the start of the strike.
So on Tuesday morning, the employees started a strike and went to Prague in front of the embassy of the Republic of South Korea. After an hour-long demonstration, which was attended by a little over a hundred people, they returned. During the afternoon there was a report that some lines in the business were running. If the company were to hire new people from outside for this purpose, for example through employment agencies, its actions would be illegal. It would also be illegal for the strikers to be replaced by people ordered to work more than eight hours of overtime per week. According to information from ČTK, the company is recruiting new people and offers them a starting salary of 30,000 gross.
After years, the company’s Korean management appeared at the meeting
On Monday, Nexen Tire company representatives submitted a proposal for a preliminary measure to the Regional Court in Ústí nad Labem to stop the strike and declare it illegal. “We have a court decision that rejected this proposal, so the strike continues, we have met all the conditions,” said OS KOVO chairman Roman Ďurčo for Alarm. According to him, the attempt to cancel the strike through court shows that the management of the company is running out of steam. “The employer knew all along that this was coming, he could have acted, and he didn’t sit down at the table, so as far as we’re concerned, we’re definitely not going to make any concessions. Last night they invited us to a meeting and the trade unionists from Nexen saw the Korean management for the first time in four years, until then they had never negotiated with them,” Ďurčo describes the immediate reaction of the Korean management and adds: “Now we will persevere until the end. Soon their losses will be such that it would be worth their while to negotiate. The court’s decision is a good signal for employees that we are in the right.”
The chairman of the local trade union Rohel also spoke about the negotiations: “After four years of negotiations, we finally negotiated with the Korean leadership. Chairman Kim opened negotiations with the strike committee. After a four-hour meeting, he promised an answer to our requests within a week. We take the weekly decision limit from the employer as an evasive maneuver to buy time and weaken our resolve,” he said in a statement on Tuesday evening.
It was reported in the media that 191 people went on strike on Tuesday, but it is more difficult to calculate exactly how many employees are participating in the strike. “the numbers change every day, there are four shifts, each with a total of 1,143 employees, around 600 people spoke out for the strike, they had to sign consent. And now things are spinning on those shifts, today on Wednesday the third shift went on strike and in the evening there will be a quarter shift, so then the employer will know in detail how many people have actively joined the strike,” explains Ďurčo, adding to the efforts to start production: “They are still trying to start the lines, according to our information, they are offering five to seven thousand for overtime to some who did not go on strike.” The important thing, according to him, is that the operation of the factory is paralyzed, and if the strikers persist, they will negotiate better conditions. “It will also be a clear signal to other South Korean employers in the Czech Republic that there is a need to negotiate and maintain social peace.”
After the second day of the strike, the chairman of the local trade union, Pavel Rohel, calculates the successes they have achieved so far. He mentions the participation in the march outside the factory, the resulting negotiations with the Korean management and the court decision that rejected the employer’s proposal to stop the strike. “We have completely stopped the machines in the factory and most of the workers in the factory are joining the strike during the second day of the strike,” adds Rohel.
The author is the editor of Alarm.