A union representing tens of thousands of workers at South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co yesterday said it would hold a three-day strike later this month after negotiations failed.
“Starting from July 8, we will stage a three-day general strike,” National Samsung Electronics Union vice president Lee Hyun-kuk said.
The union announced the strike late on Monday in a live YouTube broadcast, without providing the dates.
Photo: Bloomberg
The move follows a one-day walkout last month, the first such collective action at the company, which went decades without unionization.
Management at the company, the world’s biggest producer of memory chips, has been locked in negotiations with the union since January.
Workers have rejected the offer of a 5.1 percent pay hike, with the union having previously outlined demands including improvements to annual leave and transparent performance-based bonuses.
In calling for the strike, the union said that “management created this state” by failing to offer significant concessions.
“What will change if we do not act? Will you just watch and do nothing? Will you be a hidden slave or an active owner? Nothing will change if we do not act,” its statement said.
“All employees need to participate in the strike. Let’s step up and change it,” it said.
Samsung declined a request for comment.
Samsung Electronics avoided its employees unionizing for almost 50 years — sometimes adopting ferocious tactics, according to critics — while rising to become the world’s largest smartphone and semiconductor manufacturer.
Company founder Lee Byung-chul, who died in 1987, was adamantly opposed to unions, saying that he would never allow them “until I have dirt over my eyes.”
The first labor union at Samsung Electronics was formed in the late 2010s.
SEEKING CLARITY: Washington should not adopt measures that create uncertainties for ‘existing semiconductor investments,’ TSMC said referring to its US$165 billion in the US Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) told the US that any future tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors could reduce demand for chips and derail its pledge to increase its investment in Arizona. “New import restrictions could jeopardize current US leadership in the competitive technology industry and create uncertainties for many committed semiconductor capital projects in the US, including TSMC Arizona’s significant investment plan in Phoenix,” the chipmaker wrote in a letter to the US Department of Commerce. TSMC issued the warning in response to a solicitation for comments by the department on a possible tariff on semiconductor imports by US President Donald Trump’s
‘FAILED EXPORT CONTROLS’: Jensen Huang said that Washington should maximize the speed of AI diffusion, because not doing so would give competitors an advantage Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday criticized the US government’s restrictions on exports of artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China, saying that the policy was a failure and would only spur China to accelerate AI development. The export controls gave China the spirit, motivation and government support to accelerate AI development, Huang told reporters at the Computex trade show in Taipei. The competition in China is already intense, given its strong software capabilities, extensive technology ecosystems and work efficiency, he said. “All in all, the export controls were a failure. The facts would suggest it,” he said. “The US
The government has launched a three-pronged strategy to attract local and international talent, aiming to position Taiwan as a new global hub following Nvidia Corp’s announcement that it has chosen Taipei as the site of its Taiwan headquarters. Nvidia cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday last week announced during his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei that the Nvidia Constellation, the company’s planned Taiwan headquarters, would be located in the Beitou-Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區) in Taipei. Huang’s decision to establish a base in Taiwan is “primarily due to Taiwan’s talent pool and its strength in the semiconductor
French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed gratitude to Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) for its plan to invest approximately 250 million euros (US$278 million) in a joint venture in France focused on the semiconductor and space industries. On his official X account on Tuesday, Macron thanked Hon Hai, also known globally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), for its investment projects announced at Choose France, a flagship economic summit held on Monday to attract foreign investment. In the post, Macron included a GIF displaying the national flag of the Republic of China (Taiwan), as he did for other foreign investors, including China-based
RSS