Samsung Electronics union launches 3-day strike

[Photo by Kim Ho-young]

Unionized workers at South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. initiated a three-day general strike with a rally at the entrance of the company‘s facility in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, south of Seoul, on Monday.

This is the first strike by unionized workers in the tech giant’s 55-year history, and police estimated that approximately 3,000 union members were present at the rally.

The National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) said that it will conduct a no-work-no-pay general strike from Monday until Wednesday and will launch a second, five-day general strike the following week if negotiations with management do not progress.

The union has demanded a higher wage increase for its members, including the 855 members who did not sign the 2024 salary negotiation, and improved overall performance incentive (OPI) standards. It also demanded the company offer more paid leave and provide compensation for economic losses incurred by union members during unpaid strikes.

The NSEU, the largest union at Samsung Electronics, has about 30,000 members, which makes up 24 percent of the company’s total workforce of approximately 125,000 employees. The union claimed that a total of 6,540 members from the Giheung, Pyeongtaek, Cheonan, Onyang, Gumi, and Gwangju plants have expressed their intention to participate in the strike.

“With over 5,000 members from the semiconductor equipment, manufacturing, and development sectors joining the strike, there will inevitably be production disruptions,” the union asserted.

The union plans to continue the second strike depending on the progress of negotiations, warning that “we may move to an indefinite strike if management does not present an offer by Wednesday.”

Samsung’s investors, customers, and foreign media are concerned about the union’s actions causing production disruptions at a critical time when the company is trying to rebound from a semiconductor operating loss of 15 trillion won ($10.84 billion) in 2023 and is focusing on future artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor investments.

Samsung Electronics said that fewer than 6,000 employees participated in the actual strike and that there were no immediate production disruptions. But the company is wary that a prolonged strike could negatively impact the company’s corporate value and production sites.

The semiconductor industry is concerned about the potential damage to Samsung Electronics’ competitiveness.

“This strike is self-destructive,” Korea Semiconductor Industry Association Executive Director Ahn Ki-hyun said. “Semiconductor plants need to run around the clock and halting them due to a strike is detrimental to both labor and management.”

Bloomberg reported that the unprecedented union general strike risks hurting Samsung and inciting similar labor movements across the tech industry.