Samsung Electronics’ biggest employee union in South Korea began a three-day strike on Monday with thousands of workers walking out as they push for bigger pay increases and “fair” bonus agreements.

Leaders of the National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) said that production lines using 8-inch wafers had “problems” in the morning as 6,540 members of the union joined the first day of a three-day strike, reported Nikkei Asia. It includes those from Samsung’s semiconductor plant in Hwaseong.

“Semiconductor lines are much more vulnerable than [management] expected to a strike. We all know that it does not work if just one shift is absent,” said Lee Hyun-kook, vice president of the NSEU, during a rally at the company’s office in Hwaseong, south of Seoul. “Then it directly affects production. How could the management not understand this when we said we would go on strike?”

The NSEU said it has 30,000 members overall, or 24 per cent of the company’s 124,000 workforce in the country.

Any disruption to its semiconductor production will not go unnoticed by the top management at Samsung.

Samsung (Image: Sourced from Samsung Newsroom)

Samsung is the world’s largest maker of memory chips and smartphones and posted a staggering 15-fold year-on-year surge in operating profit to A$11.11 billion (10.4 trillion won) in the June quarter.

The company’s sales grew around 23 per cent, the steepest rise since Covid-era highs recorded in 2021.

Companies such as SK Hynix and US-based Micron Technology are already challenging Samsung in the semiconductor space and a disruption in production will likely set Samsung back considerably.

The latest strike follows action taken by some employees on June 7 who took a single day off in protest against the management not meeting their demands. Thereafter, the employees and the company resumed talks on June 13 which reached a stalemate and resulted in the latest action.

Samsung management didn’t accept the union’s demand for additional paid leave and a higher wage hike for 855 workers who didn’t agree to a 3 per cent annual basic pay increase.

Another issue that the workers want is to have employee bonuses tied to Samsung’s profit, which chip workers didn’t receive last year.