The National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) has announced its members will stage a three-day general strike, following a breakdown in negotiations regarding pay and benefits.
The strike will begin on July 8 and last for three days. Union members are asking for a pay increase in line with the national average of 6.5 percent, in addition to an extra day of annual leave and improvements to the company’s performance-based bonus system.
In comments reported by Reuters, Son Woo-mok, president of NSEU, said on a live YouTube broadcast that “until [the union’s] demands are met, we will fight with the ‘no pay no work’ general strike.”
More details about the upcoming strike action are expected to be revealed in the coming days. The NSEU, which consists of approximately 28,000 workers, around one-fifth of the company’s workforce, staged an initial walkout on June 7 however, in that instance, participating workers were asked to use paid annual leave.
It has since been reported that the June action had no impact on Samsung’s production or business activity and because the walkout took place the day after a Korean public holiday, the company has claimed that even with the strike action taking place, there were fewer employees on annual leave that day than on the equivalent day the previous year.
Samsung has had a long history of union-busting, with the company’s founder Lee Byung-chul, who died in 1987, having been reported as once saying workers would not be allowed to unionize “until I have dirt over my eyes.” This practice continued long after his death, however, after the company’s chairman Lee Jae-yong was prosecuted for stock manipulation and accounting fraud, public scrutiny led to Samsung promising it would stop discouraging employees from organizing. Jae-yong was acquitted of the charges in February 2024, having served seven months of a 30-month sentence.
