FILE PHOTO: The logo of Samsung Electronics is seen at the company's store in Seoul, South Korea, April 15, 2025. [Photo/Agencies]
SEOUL — Samsung Electronics and its labor union started talks on Monday in a last-ditch bid to avert the biggest strike in the tech giant's history, amid concerns that a walkout by more than 45,000 workers could hit South Korea's economy and disrupt global supply chains.
The threatened 18-day strike starting on Thursday comes amid an acute global shortage of memory chips, which are essential components in AI data centers, smartphones and laptops. The shortage has boosted profits at Samsung and its peers in recent months.
Park Su-keun, chairman of the National Labor Relations Commission, said that talks would resume on Tuesday after noting that the two sides remained far apart on Monday.
The union has asked Samsung to abolish a bonus cap of 50 percent on annual salaries and allocate 15 percent of annual operating profit to a bonus pool shared by workers and formalize this in contracts.
