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Employees of Samsung Electronics announce first-ever strike


FILE - A worker waters the flower garden next to the logo of Samsung Electronics at the company's headquarters in Suwon on June 13, 2023.
FILE - A worker waters the flower garden next to the logo of Samsung Electronics at the company's headquarters in Suwon on June 13, 2023.

More than 28,000 employees of South Korea’s Samsung Electronics will stage a one-day walkout next week over demands for better pay and benefits.

The National Samsung Electronics Union announced the June 7 strike date Wednesday during a live-streamed news conference. The walkout would be the first-ever employee strike against the tech giant if it goes ahead.

The union has been negotiating with Samsung management since January over a new contract. A union spokesperson said during the live-streamed conference that it had accepted the company’s proposed pay raise, but said the union also wanted one additional holiday along with a transparent system of performance-based bonuses.

A spokesperson for Samsung Electronics issued a statement saying it would continue talks with the union.

Samsung Electronics is the flagship subsidiary of the Samsung Group, the largest of the family-owned conglomerates that dominates South Korea’s economy. It is the world’s leading maker of memory chips and one of the world’s biggest makers of smartphones. Observers believe the one-day strike could lead to a possible general strike at some point, which could negatively affect the global supply chain of high-end electronics.

Samsung Electronics had prevented its employees from unionizing for decades until 2020, when vice-chairman Lee Jae-yong was prosecuted for bribery.

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