Samsung Motors staff in limbo amid renault talks

Ulhas Joglekar ulhasj at bom4.vsnl.net.in
Sat Apr 15 20:32:22 PDT 2000


Thursday 13 April 2000

Samsung Motors staff in limbo amid renault talks PUSAN, South Korea: To stay or go? That is the question the some 2,000 workers at Samsung Motors Co. have been asking themselves for 15 weeks while awaiting the outcome of talks between Renault SA and their company's creditors on reviving the failed South Korean automaker. An exclusive negotiating period granted renault to take over the firm was extended at the beginning of the year until April 21 and, since then, the bargaining has been grinding on in both Seoul and Paris. In the ultra-modern workshops of Samsung's only plant in Pusan, opened just as the region was hit with economic crisis in 1997, 1,500 workers toil in beige coveralls and yellow hard hats marked with their firm's blue logo. But every morning, members of an "emergency representative group" talk with them about a list of their demands to be delivered by the end of the week to renault's international human resources department. One thing they all know is that renault cut 21,000 workers from Nissan's global payroll when it took majority control of that carmaker and, more significantly, closed five plants in Japan. Samsung Motors was launched in March 1998 but was placed in receivership last July with 4.3 trillion won in debts. Last week, Renault and Samsung Motors' creditors said they had narrowed their differences on sale terms, including the contentious issue of the bankrupt company's hidden debt. The French firm's latest offer reportedly totals $550 million.(AFP) ironically, it was thanks to nissan's involvement the pusan factory was launched. The gleaming facility is capable of churning out 240,000 vehicles every year, but a derth of orders means it instead only sputters out copies of the japanese maxima sedan called the sm5. "Our aim is to safeguard people's jobs," explained lee kyunghwa of samsung's personnel department. But here in south korea, where the chaebol system of interdependent conglomerates has assured workers pay ckecks for life, those words carry more weight than they might in other places. Samsung group management, which must separate from its automobile division, has proposed samsung motor workers be transferred to another industrial branch of the conglomerate. In south korea, working for samsung -- whose name means "three stars" in korean -- constitutes a social and economic blessing, even making it easier to get bank loans. That's what compelled renault's human relations director to visit south korea in march to consult with the workers. The french company is worried the workers will choose at the end of any takeover to remain within the bosom of the chaebol, hampering its plans to relaunch production in pusan. "Renault has affirmed our case is completely different from nissan. We were 6,000 when the plant was launched, today we're little more than a third (of that)," said seong kunje, head of samsung motors' public relations department. Seong said that apart from providing work for some 2,100 subcontractors -- which are all in favour of the renault deal -- the plant also sustains another 75,000 people in pusan, a port city located some 450 km south of the capital seoul and the country's second-city with four million people. For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service
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