KUALA LUMPUR - South Korea’s largest industrial labour union has launched a recruitment drive targeting migrant workers at HD Hyundai Heavy Industries’ shipbuilding complex in Ulsan.
The campaign is being led by the Korean Metal Workers’ Union as part of efforts to expand union membership among subcontracted workers, many of whom are foreign nationals.
A senior union official said the initiative aims to ensure migrant workers receive proper representation and are included in collective bargaining negotiations.
“In many workplaces, especially in the shipyards, the number of migrant workers is growing rapidly, and they are often forced to endure poor conditions while left in a blind spot in terms of their rights,” the official told The Korea Times.
The three-day campaign includes leaflet distribution at shipyard entrances, multilingual materials, QR code surveys and trucks broadcasting messages in languages such as English, Chinese, Nepali and Vietnamese.
The union said recent amendments to the Trade Union Act, known as the ‘yellow envelope law’, now allow subcontracted workers to negotiate directly with major employers such as Hyundai.
The campaign is also encouraging Korean workers on fixed-term contracts to join the union to strengthen efforts for better working conditions.
According to the union, Hyundai’s Ulsan shipyard employs about 40,000 workers, including around 15,000 direct employees and 25,000 subcontracted workers, many of them migrants.
The union said migrant and subcontracted workers have become essential to the shipbuilding industry due to labour shortages caused by declining interest among local skilled workers.
It said many Korean workers had left the shipbuilding sector over the years because of low wages and difficult working conditions.
“The government and management are filling the gap by driving migrant workers into low-wage, long-hour jobs. This is the reality behind the facade of what has been promoted as K-shipbuilding.
“The more subcontracted and migrant workers join and participate in the union, the greater our social strength becomes and the stronger our hand at the bargaining table,” the union said in a statement.
Despite the recruitment drive, many migrant workers remain hesitant to join unions due to fears of retaliation from subcontracting firms and concerns over their visa status.
While there are no official figures on union membership rates among foreign workers in Korea, experts believe participation remains significantly lower than the country’s overall unionisation rate of around 13%.
