Samsung union shelves strike plan on tentative deal, Yonhap says

[SEOUL] Samsung Electronics’ labour union suspended its planned strike and will put a tentative wage agreement with the management of the world’s largest memory chipmaker to a vote, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

The report came after days of stop-and-start negotiations, with the union threatening an 18-day walkout to start from Thursday – a move that would have disrupted not just production but also complicated Samsung’s efforts to accelerate development of next-generation semiconductors. 

In guidance issued to union members on May 20, the union said, “The general strike scheduled for May 21 to June 7 will be suspended until further notice,” according to the Yonhap report.

Samsung’s union notified members that they would participate in a vote on the tentative 2026 wage agreement from 9 am on May 23 to 10 am on May 28, Yonhap reported.

Any production halts at Samsung would have rippled through the global technology supply chain. The suspension of the strike eases concerns about a potential reduction in output from Samsung, the world’s biggest supplier of the chips that go into devices from data centre servers to smartphones and electric vehicles.

Even so, the talks underscored simmering tensions across the country as workers push for a greater share of the profits that companies like Samsung and SK Hynix are deriving from a global AI infrastructure boom. 

The Yonhap report didn’t include details on the tentative agreement.

The union had earlier demanded that Samsung scrap an existing bonus cap, allocate 15 per cent of its operating profit to worker bonuses and formalise those terms in employment contracts. Labour leaders pointed to SK Hynix, which last year agreed to allocate 10 per cent of annual operating profit to a performance bonus pool.

Samsung had proposed allocating 10 per cent of operating profit to bonuses, along with a one-time special compensation package that exceeds industry standards. Company executives argued that the union’s demands would be difficult to sustain over the long term. 

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“There are mounting concerns that any significant production disruptions or operational uncertainty at Samsung Electronics could place additional strain on the global memory semiconductor market, potentially worsening supply bottlenecks, price volatility, procurement uncertainty and broader supply chain instability,” the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea said in a statement this month. BLOOMBERG