Samsung Union Threatens Strike Because Pay Talks Have Stuck
Samsung Electronics union says there could be a strike if pay talks with management fail, which increases the chance of industrial action.
The South Korean labor union for Samsung Electronics has said it will end wage talks with management if a mediation plan is not made within two hours. Talks with management are still stuck.
The government has been handling the long-standing disagreement. Despite long talks, neither side has been able to come to an agreement. The union says that it has already been waiting for an official mediation offer for several hours.
As Choi Seung-ho, a union representative, says, the company is still offering to give 10% of its running profit to a performance-based bonus pool.
The union, on the other hand, wants a bigger part of the operating profit—15% of it—to be given as bonuses. They also want a cap on bonus payments of 50% of the annual base salary to be lifted, and they want these changes to last beyond this year.
Workers are also upset about what they see as a growing pay gap with competitor SK Hynix. This is because SK Hynix has an advantage when it comes to providing high-speed memory chips that are used in AI systems that power platforms like ChatGPT.
It is said that SK Hynix’s decision to remove its bonus cap last year led to payouts that were more than three times higher than Samsung’s. This has helped motivate more people at Samsung to join the union.
This comes at a time when the semiconductor business is having a great year financially. This is because demand is going up because of the global boom in artificial intelligence. NVIDIA has become a key customer that drives demand for high-tech chips, which is good for all suppliers in the field.
Samsung Electronics is now the second Asian company, after TSMC, to have a market value of more than $1 trillion. This shows how big the chip business is growing even though labor disputes are getting worse.
