S Korea Samsung workers declare immediate strike

02 Jul, 2024

SEOUL: Workers at Samsung Electronics will go on immediate strike, a union chief announced Monday, as a dispute over pay and benefits at the tech giant escalates.

“Until our demands are met, we will fight with the ‘no pay, no work’ general strike,” said Son Woo-mok, head of the National Samsung Electronics Union.

The move follows a one-day walkout in June, the first such collective action at the company which went decades without unionisation.

Son said Samsung Electronics’ latest offer to employees “has angered all members” of the union, which represents around 28,000 workers.

Management at the firm, the world’s biggest producer of memory chips, has been locked in negotiations with the union since January.

The company has offered workers a pay hike of 5.1 percent this year ahead of the June strike.

Rejecting the current offer, the union chief outlined demands including improvements to annual leave and transparent performance-based bonuses.

“The management should be held accountable for all the losses incurred by the strike,” Son said in a live YouTube broadcast.

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