By Heekyong Yang, Ju-min Park and Hyunsu Yim
SEOUL (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics’ union in South Korea will begin escalating strike action next week over demands for higher wages, union officials said on Wednesday.
The union, which has about 28,000 members, or more than a fifth of the company’s total workforce, said it will stop work for one day on June 7 as part of broader protest measures.
The announcement was made by union officials at a live-streamed press conference, where they held a banner which read: “We can no longer tolerate labour repression, union repression.”
Responding to a decision by the company to increase wages this year by 5.1%, the union has previously said that it wanted an additional day of annual leave as well as transparent performance-based bonuses.
On Wednesday, the union accused the tech giant of failing to bring a compromise plan to negotiations held the previous day.
Samsung Electronics said in a statement on Wednesday: “We will sincerely engage in discussions with the union.”
A union official defended the decision to take industrial action at a time when some parts of Samsung’s business are underperforming.
“The company has been saying they are facing crisis all along for the past 10 year,” a union official told reporters, but added that the firm should not use it as an excuse not to meet its demands.
The union said all company sites across South Korea would be affected by its June 7 action.
The strike announcement comes as Samsung appears to be faltering in some areas, including cutting-edge semiconductor chips.
Samsung last week replaced the head of its semiconductor unit saying a new person at the top was needed to navigate what it called a “crisis” affecting the chips industry.
More than 2,000 unionised workers of the South Korean technology giant gathered in Seoul last week to hold a rare rally to demand better wages.
Shares of Samsung Electronics were tradingdown 1.9% on Wednesday, compared with the benchmark KOSPI’s 1.4% fall as of 0337 GMT.
(Reporting by Hyunsu Yim, Heekyong Yang and Ju-min Park; Editing by Ed Davies and Shri Navaratnam)
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