The first-ever walkout by Samsung Electronics employees occurred in South Korea. The business seeks to reclaim its dominance in the fabrication of memory chips, an essential component of sophisticated AI systems.
It was anticipated that most of the workers who will not be reporting to work on Friday for the scheduled one-day walkout would be from Samsung’s semiconductor business.
According to union leaders, wage increases and bonus talks have reportedly broken down after many rounds of negotiations. Samsung Electronics has declined to comment further on the specifics of the discussions, although it is attempting to reach an agreement with the union.
Timed to coincide with a national holiday and the weekend, on a day that many South Koreans intended to take a vacation, the work stoppage had little impact on Samsung’s production or commercial activity. It was unclear how many employees took part in the strike. The current point of contention concerns the incentive payments made to Samsung laborers. Even though the semiconductor division lost about 15 trillion won last year, employees still didn’t get any bonuses. Despite the division’s potential for earnings recovery, they are worried that they may not receive bonuses this year.
Samsung utilizes a complicated formula to determine employee incentives. The formula takes operational earnings (after taxes) and subtracts the cost of capital. The union is demanding more transparency from the corporation regarding the calculation of operational profit or that it adopt a more standard method like its competitors. The loss of a bonus, which has traditionally constituted a sizeable chunk of an employee’s salary, can have a substantial impact on their overall income.
At issue here is whether Samsung would prioritize worker contributions over shareholder profits. As a result of Samsung Electronics’ good-faith talks with the union, no changes have been made to production or management.
