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40 000 Samsung workers threaten indefinite strike to demand better better wages and bonuses

The Left Daily 27 April 2026

More than 40,000 Samsung workers demonstrated last week in South Korea to demand better wages and bonuses. Despite soaring profits, the company's 125,000 South Korean employees are protesting the low profit-sharing percentage and threatening an indefinite strike.

More than 40,000 Samsung Electronics workers demonstrated last Thursday in Pyeongtaek, South Korea , where the electronics giant's main factory is located. The protest aimed to demand better wages and bonuses, amid explosive growth for the company .

In just one year, the value of the company's shares, the main component of the Samsung conglomerate , tripled, reflecting a meteoric rise in profits. However, these gains benefited almost exclusively the corporation's shareholders, rather than the nearly 125,000 South Korean employees who made this growth possible.

Last year, workers mobilized against this brutal plundering of their labor during the company's first strike . At the urging of the sector's three main unions, they are launching another offensive this year, demanding a 7% increase in all wages, the elimination of the cap on productivity bonuses, and the distribution of 15% of operating profits as bonuses.

To this end, the mobilization of 40,000 employees on Thursday, April 23—representing a third of the company's total national workforce—was a true show of force. If their demands are not met, the unions have announced they will call an indefinite strike from May 21 to June 7.

This mobilization is not an isolated case. At Samsung Biologics , for example, another subsidiary of the Samsung conglomerate , a demonstration brought together 2,200 workers on Tuesday, April 21, in front of the company's main entrance in Songdo. This mobilization " aims to change the company's decision-making structure " following the leak of personnel-related documents, according to the company's union president, Park Jaesung, who called a strike for May 1, which was approved by nearly 75% of the company's employees .

These mobilizations directly threaten the profits of the entire electronics industry, as Samsung occupies a central place in it, controlling a large part of the new technologies market and playing a key role in the production chains of many other giants, particularly American ones, such as NVIDIA, Google or Apple .

This show of strength by the South Korean labor movement and Samsung workers is also a new and significant phenomenon. The company is, in fact, the most powerful chaebol in the country, responsible for 17% of its GDP . Chaebols , dynastic conglomerates that flourished under successive pro-American dictatorships in the postwar period, play a central political role in South Korea. Samsung 's founder and patriarch of the Lee dynasty, Lee Byung-chul, was during his lifetime one of the regime's main allies and a staunch enemy of the working class, famously declaring that there would never be unions in his company " until his eyes were stained with dirt ."

Therefore, a strike at Samsung , the main component of the chaebol, is far from insignificant . In a country severely affected by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the actions of US imperialism in the Middle East, the movement could spread and unite broader sectors of the working class, which is facing rising prices and the consequences of shortages, while also taking advantage of the crisis in the relationship between South Korea and the United States, its main imperialist ally.
https://www.laizquierdadiario.com/Corea-del-Sur-40-000-trabajadores-de-Samsung-amenazan-con-huelga-indefinida-para-exigir-mejores?

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