A union representing workers at South Korean technology behemoth Samsung Electronics has called on its about 30,000 members to go on strike indefinitely as part of a campaign for improved pay and benefits.
The declaration came on the final day of a three-day national strike called by the National Samsung Electronics Union.
The union says it reached the decision after management refused to negotiate its requests.
The NSEU, which represents about a quarter of Samsung Electronics’ employees in South Korea, stated that its protests had hampered production. Samsung has refuted these assertions.
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“Samsung Electronics will ensure that there are no disruptions in the production lines. The corporation is still committed to engage in good faith negotiations with the union,” it told BBC News.
However, the labor organization responded: “The company has no intention to engage in a dialogue even after the first general strike, thus we declare a second general strike starting from July 10th, lasting indefinitely.”
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According to the NSEU, approximately 6,500 workers have participated in the strike thus far, and the union encourages more of its members to do the same.
A spokeswoman for Samsung Electronics declined to comment on how many staff participated in the strike.
An estimated 3,000 individuals attended a demonstration on Monday.
“In our opinion, there will be no production disruption,” Jung In Yun of Fibonacci Asset Management Global told BBC News.
Last month, the union organized the company’s first walkout in five and a half decades.
Samsung Electronics is the world’s largest manufacturer of memory chips, cellphones, and TVs.
It is the flagship division of the South Korean company Samsung Group.
The company is also the largest among the family-owned enterprises that dominate Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
Samsung Group was known for not allowing unions to represent its employees until 2020, when the firm faced heavy public scrutiny after its chairman was charged with market manipulation and bribery.
Following the NSEU news, the company’s shares traded flat to slightly lower on the Korea Stock Exchange.
Last Monday, Samsung Electronics said that its profits for the three months ending June 2024 will increase 15-fold compared to the same time the previous year.
A surge in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has raised the cost of advanced processors, increasing the firm’s prediction for the second quarter.
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