Chipmaker Samsung Electronics workers to strike on July 8 to 10, says union official
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The union warned of more damaging action against the country’s most powerful conglomerate than its one-day walkout in June.
PHOTO: AFP
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SEOUL – A workers’ union at Samsung Electronics in South Korea has called for a strike from July 8 to 10, a union official said on July 2, as it steps up industrial action against the country’s most valuable company.
The National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) is determining how many workers will join the strike, the official told Reuters by telephone. The union’s roughly 28,000 members make up over a fifth of the firm’s workforce.
Mr Son Woo-mok, leader of the union, said late on July 1 that the union wants a more transparent system for bonuses and time off, and wants the company to treat it as an equal partner.
Samsung declined to comment on the union’s strike plan.
Its share price was unaffected, rising 0.1 per cent in morning trade versus a 0.7 per cent decline in the benchmark price index.
Union membership increased rapidly after Samsung in 2020 pledged to stop discouraging the growth of organised labour.
The strike itself is unlikely to have a major impact on chip output as most production at the world’s biggest memory chipmaker is automated, two analysts told Reuters.
But any impact will ultimately depend on how many people that operate chip plants participate and for how long, said senior researcher Kim Yang-Paeng at the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade.
“Chip production cannot proceed with replacement workers” if people who operate the automated machines walked out for a long time “because of the specificity and expertise of the work”, Mr Kim said.
In June, workers en masse took annual leave on the same day in what was effectively the union’s first industrial action. At the time, Samsung said there was no impact on production or business activity. Those striking were mainly employed at inner-city offices rather than at manufacturing sites, analysts said.
“This planned strike marks a turning point in Samsung’s history of non-union management. This could be seen as a drop in employee loyalty at Samsung... caused by wages and disappointing compensation compared with Samsung’s rivals,” a Seoul-based analyst said, declining to be identified as details of the strike were unknown. REUTERS
