ULSAN -- Unionists at Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's largest carmaker, said Saturday they will boycott extra shifts over the weekend so they can participate in a rally to oppose the free trade pact with the United States.
   The union said that its workers will show up for the national workers rally in Seoul scheduled for Saturday and Sunday that has been organized by the Korean Metal Workers' Union.
   The move comes after Hyundai workers picked several new, hard-line leaders last week to replace ones that had taken a more pragmatic approach to labor-management relations. The company had not experienced a walkout in the past three years.
   Before this, strikes and sit-ins that disrupted work were annual events and showcased the strained labor climate in the country.
   Company managers at the Ulsan plant, Hyundai's main production facility, located 414 kilometers southeast of Seoul, said the decision will halt the production of 7,600 vehicles. They also pointed out that Hyundai is the only local carmaker that has opted to boycott weekend overtime work.
   Kia Motors Corp., Hyundai's affiliate, and GM Korea Co., the South Korean unit of U.S. automaker General Motors Co., said that only union leadership will take part in the rally.
   Critics, meanwhile, said that the move could further fuel the public controversy surrounding the free trade agreement (FTA) issue that is pending approval from South Korean lawmakers.
   The pact, also called the KORUS FTA, was signed in June 2007 and supplemented last December with minor modifications that mostly deal with the auto industry. The agreement was ratified by the U.S.
Congress last month with policymakers in Seoul and Washington pushing to implement the FTA starting on Jan. 1, 2012.

(Yonhap News)