ALBAWABA - The most dominant workers union at Samsung Electronics headed on strike for the first time in the company's 55-year history, as Bloomberg reports, with the dispute over wages becoming deep enough that the two parties have suspended any conversations pertaining to the matter.
The National Samsung Electronics Union, which represents over 28,400 employees and is the biggest workers union affiliated with the tech giant, urged its members to take one full day off on Friday, coming between an official holiday on Thursday and the weekend, intending to return to regular business hours next week.
Since January, Samsung and the unions have been entangled in salary discussions. This year, the company has proposed a 5.1% pay increase, according to Al Jazeera; however, the union has indicated that it is seeking an extra day of annual leave in addition to more straight forward incentives based on performance.
Samsung Electronics is considered the flagship company of the enormous South Korean conglomerate Samsung Group, which is by far the biggest of the family-run businesses that rule the fourth-biggest economy in Asia, reporting roughly ten-fold increase in first-quarter operating profit at 6.61 trillion won ($4.85 billion), driven by strong sales of its Galaxy S24 smartphone and higher semiconductor prices.
“This is a soft start and a symbolic move,” Lee Hyun-kuk, deputy secretary general of the union stated to Bloomberg News, adding that “we have plans for subsequent strikes if the management refuses to communicate. We are not ruling out an all-out general strike.”
