Hyundai News Bot

Unions at the Czech plant of South Korean car maker Hyundai gave up their threat to go on strike after reaching an agreement with management on Tuesday, the company said.

"The strike alert ended as of today on the basis of an agreement signed by the employer, unions and the employee council," Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Czech spokesman Petr Vanek told AFP.

Unions declared a strike alert last week after accusing managers of imposing too much overtime and complaining about poor working conditions.

Vanek said the company would not sanction about 400 staff at the plant who stopped working for an hour in protest against low salaries and overtime earlier this month.

He added Hyundai had also cancelled overtime throughout December and pledged to investigate reported bullying and improve communication with the company's staff.

The CTK news agency quoted Hyundai unions head Radek Kuchar as saying his side was happy with "most of the agreement."

"What we have achieved is that the people won't be sanctioned and overtime work will be reduced to a minimum," Kuchar said.

Hyundai launched the Czech plant a year ago, at a time when the global car industry was hit by slumping demand caused by the economic crisis.

The plant with 2,000 staff produced about 80,000 cars between January and September and expects to turn out 120,000 vehicles for all of 2009 -- despite the cuts in overtime -- against an earlier estimate of 160,000 units.

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