Samsung Workers’ Union Announces First-Ever Strike for Chipmaker

The South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics announced on Wednesday the first ever strike by its employees. This could threaten the global semiconductor supply chain.

A spokesperson stated that union members, which is around 20% of the workforce or 28,000 employees, would strike on 7th June for one day, opening the door to a possible general strike in the future.

Since January, management at the company, the largest producer of memory chip in the world, has been in wage negotiations with the union. However, both sides have not managed to resolve their differences.

At a live-streamed press conference, a spokesperson from the National Samsung Electronics Union announced that the union was declaring a general strike due to the company’s negligence of its workers. “We’ve tried to resolve the issue by dialogue.”

Son Woomok, the union president, stated that the union accepted the raise in pay proposed by the company, but asked for an additional holiday and “a transparent system of measuring the performance bonus on the basis of the sales profit”.

He said, “The company does not hear us and is not communicating with our last negotiations session.”

Samsung’s official stated: “Samsung is committed to continuing the dialogue with its labour union as it has done in the past.”

The union spokesperson confirmed that this was the first strike of the company and said it could “lead to a general strikes”.

The company is now responsible for any collective action. We declare our stance against the company’s negligence and interference with our peaceful struggle to date.

Samsung Electronics, one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in the world, is also one of only a few companies that produce the high-end memory chip used for generative artificial intelligence. This includes top-of the-line hardware from leading industry players such as Nvidia. It is a flagship subsidiary of South Korean conglomerate Samsung Group. This is by far the biggest of the family-controlled companies that dominate Asia’s 4th largest economy.

Samsung Electronics has avoided unionization of its employees for almost 50 years – at times adopting fierce tactics, critics say – and risen to become the largest smartphone and semiconductor maker in the world.

Samsung founder Lee Byung Chul, who passed away in 1987, was adamantly against unions. He said he wouldn’t allow them until he had “dirt over my eyes”.

A South Korean MP obtained internal documents from 2012 that instructed managers to control “problematic personnel” who sought to form unions.

It stated, among other things, “To avoid unfair labour claims, dismiss key organizers before launching a union.”

In 2019, organizers took advantage of the left-leaning Moon Jaein government – a former lawyer for trade unions who was also a rights lawyer – as well as the controversy surrounding the bribery case of Lee Jaeyong, then the vice-chair of the company and the grandson of the founder, to create a union.

Kim Dae-jong is a professor of business and economics at Sejong University. He said that having 20% of the workforce on strike would have a significant impact on the company. This was especially true at a moment when the semiconductor industry, which is constantly changing, requires quick action.

Samsung’s management, unlike Hyundai Motor which has had to deal with strikes almost every year, will find it difficult to control the situation, as they have never experienced a strike.