SEOUL: A major union representing tens of thousands of people at South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics said Wednesday that workers will go on strike for the first time, potentially threatening key global semiconductor supply chains.
A spokesperson said union members, around 20 percent of the company workforce, would use annual leave to strike for one day on June 7, leaving the door open for a potential general strike down the road.
Samsung Electronics is one of the world’s largest smartphone makers and also one of the only companies globally to produce high-end memory chips used for generative AI, including top-of-the-line AI hardware from industry leaders such as Nvidia.
Management at the firm, the world’s biggest producer of memory chips, has been locked in negotiations with the union over wages since January but the two sides have failed to narrow their differences.
“We are declaring a strike in the face of the company’s neglect of labourers,” the National Samsung Electronics Union said at a live-streamed news conference.
“We have tried to solve the issue through dialogue,” said the union, which represents more than 28,000 people.
“Responsibility for all collective action from now lies squarely on the company. We are declaring our stance in the face of the company’s neglect and interference in our peaceful struggle so far,” it said.
The strike, if it goes ahead, would be the first walkout by workers at the South Korean tech giant.
Union president Son Woo-mok said the union had accepted the pay raise proposed by the company but was asking for one additional holiday plus “a transparent system to measure the performance bonus based on the sales profit”.
“The company is not hearing us and they are not communicating from our last negotiation session,” he said.
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