Talks between Samsung Electronics and striking workers end without agreement

Samsung Electronics and its main union resumed wage negotiations on Tuesday but failed to reach an agreement, informed sources said.

According to the source, Son Woo-mok, chairman of the National Samsung Electronics Union, and Kim Hyeong-ro, vice president of the company, took part in the ninth round of talks.

These were the first collective bargaining negotiations between the two sides since the NSEU called a full-scale strike on July 8.

They held a preparatory meeting last week to discuss the timetable for the talks.

The talks lasted nearly eight hours from 9 a.m. but ended without any significant progress, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Samsung Electronics has offered a 5.1 percent wage increase, underlining its commitment to building a win-win relationship between employees and employers

However, the NSEU is demanding a 5.6 percent increase in basic salary for all members, a guaranteed day off on the union’s founding day and compensation for the economic losses caused by the strike.

Although the strike lasted more than two weeks, Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest memory chip maker, reported minimal impact on production.

Nevertheless, the ongoing strike raises concerns about a possible weakening of the competitiveness of the country’s important semiconductor industry.

The NSEU says it has a total of 31,000 members, which is about 24 percent of Samsung Electronics’ workforce of around 125,000 employees. (Yonhap)