• Korean Journal of Labor Studies
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-45
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• 2017

The aim of this study is to analyze the process of the struggle and bargaining for the change of the employment position of the irregular (in-house subcontracted) workers being at work in the Hyundai Motor Company (HMC) plants into the status of the regular employee of the company, and evaluate the results and limitation of the irregular workers' movement. Since the unionization of irregular workers in 2003, they have carried on the struggle against and the bargaining with the HMC, over the past 10 years and more, making claims for abolishing 'illegal temporary agency work' and for converting their positions into the regular ones. The HMC have gradually altered a confrontational stance against the workers' claim at the early stage, into the bargaining relationship with irregular workers' union. Eventually, the collective agreement on the 'special hiring' of about six thousands irregular workers by the HMC was reached in 2016. We attempt to analyze in depth the overall process by dividing three phases of the movement, according to the criteria of the relationship between the alliance and conflict system, and the cycle of protests of irregular workers. Furthermore, we try to trace the long and winding path of the movement, focusing on the cooperation/conflict relationship within the movement's alliance system, the confrontation/bargaining relationship between the movement and the conflict system, and the critical roles played by mediators (or third parties) between two systems. In the conclusion of the paper, we evaluate the results and limitation of the irregular workers' movement upon the basis of the following points; the convergence of the workers' demands into the prime goal of 'becoming HMC's regular employee,' the breakaway of regular workers' union from the movement's alliance system, and a virtual extinction of irregular workers' union after the final labor-management agreement of 2016.