Hyundai says strike could affect Sonata, Accent production

Subbu further added that “we have some buffer stock of imported components for all these three models and as of now we are not impacted by the strike and hope to be fine till mid September,” he said.

Regarding Santro and other variants of Accent, Subbu said that “these models are highly indigenised up to 90 per cent hence they won’t be affected.”

“We do import some steel and components from Korea for them, but they don’t come from our parent company. Thus our bread and butter line in India will remain safe,” he added.

It is to be noted that HMIL had recently clarified that the strike would not affect the production of any of its models at its Chennai plant.

The Hyundai Motor Union Workers has been staging half day and full day strikes since June 20 this year to push their demands for a shortened work week from six days to five days and union participation in key management decisions.

Hyundai Motor’s main plant in the Southern city of Ulsan, 400 kilometres South-East of Seoul remained idle for sometime when all 39,000 workers at the plant went on a week long summer vacation en masse as part of their protest.

According to HMIL officials, the workers have come back from their leave and negotiations are on with the management to resume work.

Hyundai Motor India’s plant located in Chennai can make 1.5 lakh cars annually which will be increased to 2.5 lakh units next year.