Samsung’s largest union is beginning its three-day strike in South Korea. The union currently has 36,570 members, a quarter of Samsung Electronics’ workforce, according to reports in the Korea Herald. It is demanding an additional day of annual leave, a change to the company’s draconian bonus structure and better pay overall.
This is the first labor strike in Samsung Electronics’ history after several rounds of negotiations dating back to January. “The company’s post-arbitration plan does not consider workers as equals and continues to treat them like expendable objects,” the union said in a recent statement. “We are holding the company accountable for all of this through a strike.” In pouring rain, the National Samsung Electronics Union began its strike this morning with a rally outside the company’s semiconductor plant in Hwaseong, with the five-lane road leading to the factory’s gates packed.
The union has 6,540 members participating in the strike. According to the union, 5,211 of them work in semiconductor production. Many media outlets described this participation as disappointingly low.
It must also be said that of the union’s over 30,000 members, not all or most of them work on the semiconductor manufacturing lines, which are one of the most influential areas for strikes for Samsung. Due to the specialized nature of the work in the semiconductor factories, it is unlikely that Samsung will be able to hire strikebreakers to replace the union for three days.
A major point of contention between the company and workers is the way Samsung pays bonuses to its employees. While Samsung executives receive bonuses based on personal performance targets, workers receive a flat bonus based on small losses in operating profits – an “opaque” calculation that workers say is unfair. Samsung has neither skimped on the bonus structure nor met union demands for annual leave or salary increases, but instead offered a more flexible salary structure.
This week’s three-day strike is not expected to seriously affect Samsung’s productivity, but the union has said it will begin a second five-day strike next Monday if demands are not met in time. Because of the greater publicity of the first strike, this strike would likely attract even more workers.
This joint action comes at an opportune time for the union, as Samsung Electronics is on shaky ground in the AI market boom. Rival SK hynix has a significant lead over Samsung in the AI market boom thanks to its position as a leading supplier of high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips for GPUs. Nvidia’s H100, H200 and GH200 platforms are based on SK hynix’s HBM3 memory chips, and Samsung’s slow development in the HBM field risks falling behind its biggest domestic rival, which has already sold out its HBM supply for this year.
The National Samsung Electronics Union blames Samsung’s slow development of HBM3 for this. The union is keen to have good negotiations this week so that it can resume work and help Samsung remain competitive in the market.
