Samsung: After mega profits, there is now a threat of a mega strike
Because Samsung is making huge profits from the memory crisis, the company’s employees in South Korea want to get a piece of the pie. Since the electronics giant’s previous offers are not enough for them, there is a threat of a “general strike” in May.
Samsung wants to avoid production downtimes
According to local media reports, Samsung has applied to a court in South Korea for an injunction that would prohibit the company’s unionized employees from engaging in “illegal strike activities.” The company is reacting to the threat of work stoppages, which could potentially lead to production losses. A large-scale demonstration is scheduled to take place on April 23rd at the huge Samsung site in Pyeongtaek near Seoul. The unions are currently threatening Samsung with an 18-day strike that would last from May 21 to June 7, 2026. If the strike actually takes place, production downtimes could hardly be avoided, according to the South Korean daily newspaper, among others JoongAng Daily.
Unions want a profit share of 15%
This is exactly what Samsung apparently wants to prevent through its legal steps. Strike activities that endanger the safety of production facilities or cause damage to production facilities, materials or products are considered illegal in South Korea. In addition, strikers are not allowed to occupy production lines or force participation in protests through threats. The background to the dispute between Samsung and its employees is the demands of the trade unionists, according to which they want to force a share of the company’s gigantic profits of 15 percent.
Samsung promises huge bonus payments
Samsung, for its part, had already offered to give every employee in the memory division a bonus payment of 540 million won this year. This corresponds to more than 310,000 euros. According to this, this corresponds to Seoul Economic Daily six times the average annual salary of the storage division’s employees. It should be borne in mind that annual bonuses are quite common at Samsung and, according to local media, sometimes make up half of the employees’ annual income. During negotiations, Samsung had offered, among other things, a 6.2 percent increase in salaries. In addition, more transparency should be ensured in the calculation of bonus payments and employees should each receive 20 shares.
The unions, for their part, are demanding at least seven percent more wages and the aforementioned profit sharing, they say Korea Times. According to the union leadership, an 18-day strike in the South Korean factories of the various divisions of Samsung Electronics would probably mean production losses worth the equivalent of almost 19 billion euros. However, it is considered highly unlikely that such long-term work stoppages will actually occur. Just over a week ago, Samsung reported a record profit of around 31.4 billion euros for the first quarter of 2026. Compared to the first three months of the previous year, profit increased 7.5 times.
The group benefited primarily from the gigantic demand for its memory products, which can currently be marketed with extremely high profit margins due to the extreme price increases. South Korean unions have become significantly stronger in recent years. Currently, around 66,000 of Samsung’s approximately 126,000 employees in South Korea are said to be members of a union.
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