On Foreign News,
Workers at South Korean tech giant Samsung began a three-day general strike over pay and benefits today, warning that the action could impact memory chip production.
Samsung Electronics is the world’s largest memory chip maker and accounts for a significant chunk of the global output of high-end chips.
Samsung management has been locked in negotiations with the workers union since January, with the two sides failing to mitigate differences and reach common grounds on benefits and a rejected 5.1 per cent pay raise offer from the firm.
Son Woo-mok, head of the National Samsung Electronics Workers Union, expressed that today’s general strike is just the beginning, as he called on Workers to remain at home and not receive any business calls until July 10.
The union said about 5,200 people from factory facilities, manufacturing and development had joined the protest.
The union, which has more than 30,000 members, or more than a fifth of the company’s total workforce, announced the three-day general strike last week, saying it was a last resort after talks broke down. The move follows a one-day walkout in June, the first of such collective action at the company, which went decades without unionisation.
Samsung group however, is yet to release any official statements regarding the strike.
