Dear Friends,

Following the previous post on companion robots, I stay with the issue of robots and workers in South Korea. This time, I return to a more familiar terrain: the introduction of robots on the shop floor and the struggle of unions to contest them.

As Hyundai unveiled its humanoid Atlas at CES 2026, co-developed with its subsidiary Boston Dynamics, the demonstration gave us more than enough to feel uneasy.

The response from the Hyundai Motor Union (HMU) was unequivocal: not a single robot without a labor-management agreement. This position reflects a long-standing confrontation between capital and labor, and it should not be mistaken for resistance to technology itself.

The issue is not whether workers are willing to coexist with robots.

Rather, the dispute signals a deeper concern over governance at the point of production. The question is whether technological change will be collectively negotiated or imposed unilaterally.

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Labor Automation: Past and Present

From the workers’ perspective, allowing management to introduce robots on the shop floor at will represents a decisive shift in the balance of power in industrial relations. In a context already shaped by platformization, extreme casualization, and weakened labor protections, unchecked automation threatens to further erode workers’ collective power.

Seen this way, the debate over humanoid robots at Hyundai is not about human-robot interaction. It is about consent, power, and whether technological change will once again be mobilized as part of a broader strategy to discipline labor. This is a pattern with a long and instructive history in South Korea.

By insisting that “not a single robot” may enter the production line without prior agreement, the union has invoked contractual clauses requiring management to notify workers of any new technology. In doing so, it has reactivated a regulatory mechanism: an attempt to slow down technological change through collective bargaining.

Unlike the stationary robotic arms introduced in the 1990s, humanoid robots represent a qualitative shift: their mobility and dexterity. Workers recognize that this is not merely about job loss, but about the reorganization of work itself—one in which humans may increasingly be asked to switch the role with the machines.

To understand why the union draws such a firm line, we need to situate the current confrontation within a longer history of labor struggle and technological discipline.

Automation and Labor Militancy

As labor historian Beverly Silver argues in Forces of Labor, waves of labor unrest tend to follow capital’s spatial and technological fixes. South Korea in the 1980s exemplified this dynamic.

During the late 1980s—a period dubbed by Hagen Koo the “Great Workers’ Struggle”—the Korean state and capital launched coordinated offensives: violent military-style crackdowns were deployed to suppress militancy, and automation was introduced alongside efforts to flexibilize employment.

The unrest itself was shaped by global restructuring. Automotive production had shifted from the United States and Japan to South Korea, driven by the expectation that an authoritarian developmental state would guarantee labor discipline. Instead, workers rose up.

In 1987, more than 20,000 Hyundai workers occupied company plants, demanding independent and democratic unions. They forced Hyundai’s founder, Chung Ju-yung, to recognize their union. A dramatic reversal for a man who once declared there would be no union until the day he died.

It was in this context that Hyundai Robot Industry was established in 1988, explicitly aimed at reducing reliance on a militant workforce.

Automation was a strategic response to labor power.

Labor militancy, then, was both a cause and a consequence of automation. Capital learned that neither relocation nor repression alone could contain workers’ resistance. Technology became embedded within a broader political project to reassert managerial control.

Seen historically, robots have repeatedly entered the shop floor as instruments in struggles over power, discipline, and the terms of employment.

The Battles Are In the Society

Fast forward to 2026. Workers are once again facing a new cycle of capital offensives. This time it is amplified by societal hype around robots and AI.

Observers of South Korean unions might dismiss the HMU as a “labor aristocracy”, as it is a union that still retains the privilege of collective bargaining. Many smaller, independent unions have far less leverage to negotiate over the introduction of robots.

With the enactment of South Korea’s so-called “Yellow Envelope Law,” workers’ ability to challenge management decisions, including the deployment of robots, will become a litmus test for the recently reformed law itself.

In my view, the struggle over who governs technology cannot be fought on the shop floor, or in the “workplace” alone, whatever that means in a given context.

The future of work both in South Korea and across Asia will be shaped by what society is willing to contest and negotiate.

Until next time,

Kriangsak (Kiang)

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