Samsung Electronics Union in South Korea Stages First Walkout

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Samsung is seen on a building during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain February 25, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Samsung is seen on a building during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain February 25, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo
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Samsung Electronics Union in South Korea Stages First Walkout

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Samsung is seen on a building during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain February 25, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Samsung is seen on a building during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain February 25, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

A workers' union at Samsung Electronics staged its first walkout on Friday, signalling more assertiveness among employees just as South Korea's most powerful conglomerate races to catch up in chips used in artificial intelligence.

The National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU), whose roughly 28,000 members make up over a fifth of the firm's workforce, said it would stop work for a day to demand better pay.

The walkout is unlikely to immediately impact semiconductor production or shipments but will add pressure on Samsung Electronics as it chases AI and narrows a gap in contract chip manufacturing with Taiwan's TSMC, analysts said.

"The purpose of today's strike action is to have meaningful conversation with management," NSEU official Lee Hyun-kuk told Reuters. He said the union was preparing further action on Friday, without providing details.

Samsung Electronics said there was no impact on production or business activity. The strike fell a day after a public holiday and there were fewer employees on annual leave than on the equivalent day last year, the firm said, Reuters reported.

The union did not disclose how many members participated in the strike through annual leave.

"We have sincerely engaged with the union and will continue talks with them," said a company official.

Samsung Electronics' share price closed down 0.1%, versus a 1.2% rise in the benchmark KOSPI.

The walkout is unlikely to impact DRAM or NAND flash memory production or lead to shipment shortages as manufacturing is highly automated, said market researcher TrendForce.

Moreover, the walkout appears to involve more workers from the firm's Seoul headquarters than in production and was planned for a single day, TrendForce said.

The strike follows other worker protests in recent weeks outside offices in Seoul as well as outside a chip production site in Hwaseong, south of the capital.

They started after Samsung Electronics decided to increase wages this year by 5.1%. The NSEU, the biggest of five unions at the firm, want further commitments such as improvements to the performance-based bonus system and an extra day of annual leave.

Last week, a coalition of five unions at Samsung affiliates including another smaller Samsung Electronics union called on the NSEU to pursue negotiation rather than confrontation, indicating they would not join the strike.

CHIPS AND MOBILE PHONES

Samsung Electronics' run of success is being challenged in some areas, including in some cutting-edge chips. It recently replaced the head of its semiconductor unit to navigate what it called a "crisis" affecting the industry.

Any larger scale or protracted industrial action would be a headache for the world's biggest memory chip maker as it scrambles to catch up with rivals making high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips used in AI applications.

SK Hynix and Micron are already supplying HBM chips to Nvidia, which commands about 80% of the global graphic processing unit (GPU) market for AI applications.

Nvidia said this week that the three chip makers will provide HBM chips to the US firm, though SK Hynix remains its primary supplier.

Last month, Reuters reported that Samsung's HBM chips were yet to pass Nvidia's tests for use, which analysts see as a crucial milestone both reputationally and in terms of profit momentum.

While struggling in parts of its chip business, Samsung dethroned Apple to become the top smartphone seller globally in the first quarter, accounting for 20% of shipments, according to research firm Counterpoint.

Union membership increased rapidly after Samsung in 2020 pledged to end to its practice of discouraging the growth of organised labour.

Union officials said, among younger employees, there is growing perception that unions can help create a fairer workplace, whereas older generations felt unions could disrupt productivity.

Overall, South Korea's union membership rate has hovered around 10% since 2004, labour ministry data showed.



Trump Joins Tech and Energy Executives amid AI Push

A car drives past a building of the Digital Reality Data Center in Ashburn, Virginia, US, March 17, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo
A car drives past a building of the Digital Reality Data Center in Ashburn, Virginia, US, March 17, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo
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Trump Joins Tech and Energy Executives amid AI Push

A car drives past a building of the Digital Reality Data Center in Ashburn, Virginia, US, March 17, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo
A car drives past a building of the Digital Reality Data Center in Ashburn, Virginia, US, March 17, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo

President Donald Trump will join executives from some of the largest US tech and energy companies for a summit in Pittsburgh on Tuesday as the administration prepares fresh measures to power the US expansion of artificial intelligence.

Top economic rivals US and China are locked in a technological arms race over who can dominate AI as the technology takes on increasing importance everywhere from corporate boardrooms to the battlefield.

The Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University is expected to bring tech executives and officials from top energy and tech firms including Meta, Microsoft, Alphabet and Exxon Mobil to discuss how to position the US as a leader in AI. Trump will use the summit - put together by US Senator Dave McCormick, a Republican ally from Pennsylvania - to announce some $70 billion in artificial intelligence and energy investments in the state, Reuters reported.

Big Tech is scrambling to secure vast amounts of electricity supplies to power the energy-guzzling data centers needed for its rapid expansion of artificial intelligence. Companies began announcing their plans in early on Tuesday, with Google inking a $3 billion electricity deal and CoreWeave touting a $6 billion AI data center.

Google will invest $25 billion in regional data centers, while FirstEnergy will invest $15 billion in Pennsylvania's energy grid, Semafor reported. The CEOs expected to attend include Khaldoon Al-Mubarak of Mubadala, Rene Haas of Arm, Larry Fink of BlackRock, Darren Woods of ExxonMobil, Brendan Bechtel of Bechtel and Dario Amodei of Anthropic. The White House is considering executive actions in the coming weeks to make it easier for power-generating projects to connect to the grid and also provide federal land on which to build the data centers needed to expand AI technology, Reuters previously reported.

The administration is also weighing streamlining permitting for data centers by creating a nationwide Clean Water Act permit, rather than requiring companies to seek permits on a state-by-state basis.

Mike Sommers, head of the influential American Petroleum Institute, said executive action is welcomed to unlock the energy needed to power the data centers, but a more durable solution is needed.

"Real durable permitting reform requires an act of Congress, not just an executive order," Sommers said in an interview with Reuters. Trump ordered his administration in January to produce an AI Action Plan that would make "America the world capital in artificial intelligence" and reduce regulatory barriers to its rapid expansion.

That report, which includes input from the National Security Council, is due by July 23. The White House is considering making July 23 "AI Action Day" to draw attention to the report and demonstrate its commitment to expanding the industry, Reuters has reported.

US power demand is hitting record highs this year after nearly two decades of stagnation as AI and cloud computing data centers balloon in numbers and size across the country. The demand is also leading to unprecedented deals between the power industry and technology companies, including the attempted restart of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania between Constellation Energy and Microsoft.

The surge has led to concerns about power shortages that threaten to raise electricity bills and increase the risk of blackouts, while slowing Big Tech in its global race against countries like China to dominate artificial intelligence.