Hyundai workers accept wage deal

Hyundai Motor workers have voted overwhelmingly to accept a wage deal agreed by their union leaders, officials said Friday, avoiding a strike over annual pay negotiations for the first time in a decade.
The union at South Korea's biggest carmaker said 77 percent of some 42,700 members who voted accepted the deal reached earlier this week.
The agreement calls for an 84,000 won (89.30 dollars) or 5.8percent rise in monthly salary, an extension of the retirement age by one year to 59, an increase in the annual bonus and two separate annual payments of one million won each.
"It's a positive sign," said company spokesman Oles Gadacz.
"We hope it marks the start of a new cooperative relationship between management and labour, which is absolutely essential in this highly competitive industry."
The union has already gone on strike twice so far this year over separate issues, first over a disputed bonus in January and again in June to protest the signing of the US-South Korea free trade agreement.
Strikes at Hyundai Motor last year alone cost the company 115,683 vehicles worth 1.6 trillion won (1.7 billion dollars).