Hyundai's latest venture into the all-electric vehicle market may be getting off to a slow start. The 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5 is one of the best-looking new vehicles to debut in recent months, ICE or EV, and the reservation list has been steadily growing, especially in Europe and home market South Korea. Unfortunately, there appears to be a new snag.

The Korean Car Blog claims there are reports coming from South Korean media of a potential workers' strike at the Ulsan manufacturing facility charged with building the Ioniq 5. This is a unionized facility and the transition to electric vehicles, which require fewer parts and, therefore, fewer workers, is causing a breakdown in negotiations with the automaker.

Jobs are on the line and the union will do whatever is necessary to protect employees. Negotiations are currently taking place regarding the number of workers needed at Ulsan. Union leaders are angry because that total is supposedly lower than what was originally agreed upon with Hyundai a while back. Knowing full well the Ioniq 5 is in high demand (the Launch Edition sold out in less than 24 hours), those leaders now believe they have the bargaining advantage.

As of this writing, Hyundai has taken around 35,000 orders and says it is currently "negotiating man-hours with the union" and they are trying "to resolve it… and get into production."

Hopefully, there won't be any delivery delays. Chances are highly likely a solution will soon be found, but it's not expected to solve the larger problem all automakers will soon be facing with unionized factory workers. In the US, the United Auto Workers (UAW) has already expressed concern regarding the long-term futures of its members as major automakers, specifically General Motors, phase-out ICE vehicles.

The UAW has over 391,000 active members spread out across more than 600 local unions. More senior members' should have a secured future, though the younger generation is all but certain to face job losses at some point.