Monday will mark the third week of an unprecedented action for Samsung by unionized workers who have gone on an indefinite strike. Samsung Electronics, which has so far tried to ignore the problem, has decided to resume negotiations with union representatives, as Bloomberg and Reuters reported yesterday.
Image Source: Samsung Electronics
It was decided to start negotiations on Friday. Today the parties will meet to discuss the schedule for further negotiations, as explained on their YouTube channel by the leaders of the largest trade union in Samsung, which began the strike almost two weeks ago. The union covers about a quarter of Samsung’s workforce in South Korea, but so far the protests have been concentrated only at individual Samsung plants, and the company has maintained that the strike will not have a significant impact on its ability to produce products and fulfill its obligations to customers. This was largely due to the high degree of labor automation in memory production operations, the largest manufacturer of which is Samsung. However, experts have already warned that the strike could come back to haunt the testing and packaging stage of chips produced by Samsung, since this stage of the production process involves a much higher proportion of manual labor.
Let us remind you that Samsung employees are demanding the introduction of a fairer bonus system and improved recreation conditions. According to Samsung officials, the company was the first to decide to resume negotiations with the protesters. Samsung management also expresses hope that the conflict can be resolved in a short time. The company continues to insist that the strike has not had a significant impact on Samsung’s production operations so far.