Samsung Electronics Co’s unionized workers began voting yesterday on whether to stage an 18-day strike in demand of higher pay.
Voting by three unions continues through March 18 on the proposal, according to a statement by Samsung Electronics Labor Union (SELU). If approved, the walkout should take place from May 21 to June 7.
SELU, together with National Samsung Electronics Union and Samsung Electronics Union Donghaeng, has been in wage negotiations with the electronics giant for more than three months, the statement said.
Photo: AFP
The labor groups are seeking a 7 percent pay increase, the removal of the performance bonus cap and greater transparency in how they are calculated.
The unions represent about 89,000 of Samsung’s roughly 130,000 employees, Yonhap News Agency reported on Sunday.
In particular, with the high union membership rate among employees in Samsung’s semiconductor business, combined with the union’s intense pressure, worries over production disruptions for major products such as high-bandwidth memory (HBM) — which are essential for advanced processors used in artificial intelligence (AI) systems — are growing, BusinessKorea reported yesterday.
Last month, Samsung became the first in the industry to begin mass production and shipment of HBM4 and commenced production of products intended for installation in Nvidia Corp’s next-generation Vera Rubin AI accelerator.
Nvidia plans to release the Vera Rubin AI accelerator in the second half of this year, meaning that May — the period the unions have announced for the strike — is precisely when HBM manufacturing would be in full swing, according to the report.
If the industrial action plan goes ahead, it would be only the second strike in the company’s history. Workers staged their first walkout in 2024 after pay talks broke down. Samsung said at the time the disruption didn’t affect production or management operations.
Samsung Electronics didn’t respond to a Bloomberg News request for comment.
ENERGY ISSUES: The TSIA urged the government to increase natural gas and helium reserves to reduce the impact of the Middle East war on semiconductor supply stability Chip testing and packaging service provider ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) yesterday said it planned to invest more than NT$100 billion (US$3.15 billion) in building a new advanced chip testing facility in Kaohsiung to keep up with customer demand driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. That would be included in the company’s capital expenditure budget next year, ASE said. There is also room to raise this year’s capital spending budget from a record-high US$7 billion estimated three months ago, it added. ASE would have six factories under construction this year, another record-breaking number, ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu
The EU and US are nearing an agreement to coordinate on producing and securing critical minerals, part of a push to break reliance on Chinese supplies. The potential deal would create incentives, such as minimum prices, that could advantage non-Chinese suppliers, according to a draft of an “action plan” seen by Bloomberg. The EU and US would also cooperate on standards, investments and joint projects, as well as coordinate on any supply disruptions by countries like China. The two sides are additionally seeking other “like-minded partners” to join a multicountry accord to help create these new critical mineral supply chains, which feed into
For weeks now, the global tech industry has been waiting for a major artificial intelligence (AI) launch from DeepSeek (深度求索), seen as a benchmark for China’s progress in the fast-moving field. More than a year has passed since the start-up put Chinese AI on the map in early last year with a low-cost chatbot that performed at a similar level to US rivals. However, despite reports and rumors about its imminent release, DeepSeek’s next-generation “V4” model is nowhere in sight. Speculation is also swirling over the geopolitical implications of which computer chips were chosen to train and power the new
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
RSS