Ssangyong agrees with union to include bonuses in base pay

Ssangyong Motor, a local automaker owned by India’s Mahindra Group, said yesterday that it has agreed to its labor union’s demand to count regularly paid bonuses as part of ordinary wages.

The move makes Ssangyong the second Korea-based automaker to offer the proposal in this year’s wage negotiations, following GM Korea, the Korean unit of the U.S. automaker General Motors.

Ssangyong said that since the company is preparing a new model for next year and wants to stabilize sales this year, the management decided to settle its wage negotiations quickly. With regular bonuses counted in the base wage, which will raise payments for overtime, Ssangyong expects that workers will get a 13 to 15 percent wage hike. The company yesterday posted an operating loss of 16.5 billion won ($16.1 million) for this first half, down 15 percent from a year ago.