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Samsung workers protest over huge pay gap with SK Hynix, threaten long strike
Union officials said 40,000 workers joined the rally as Samsung offered 10% of operating profit for performance pay and talks continued.
- On Thursday, April 23, 2026, 40,000 Samsung Electronics workers rallied at the Pyeongtaek, South Korea, complex, demanding transparent compensation and threatening a strike that could disrupt artificial intelligence chip production.
- Chief among worker grievances is a massive bonus pay gap with crosstown rival SK Hynix, as employees argue a chip division worker earning 76 million won in base pay receives only 38 million won in bonuses.
- Demanding a 7 percent wage hike and 15 percent of annual operating profits for bonuses, workers plan to stage an 18-day walkout beginning May 21 if negotiations fail, potentially costing the company more than 1 trillion won daily.
- Management offered 10 percent of operating profit for performance pay and said it would continue working toward a wage agreement, though officials warn production halts from even a single strike could damage customer trust for years.
- Samsung forecast first-quarter operating profit would reach a record 57.2 trillion won amid an AI boom, as the company recently began mass production of next-generation HBM4 memory chips critical for scaling data centers needed for AI development.
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48 Articles
48 Articles
Several tens of thousands of employees of Samsung Electronics have protested in South Korea to demand salary increases, threatening the technological giant of a large-scale strike
·France
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Samsung Electronics labor unions vow no retreat in wage talks
Samsung Electronics labor unions staged a mass rally on Thursday, stepping up pressure on management with the threat of a full‑scale strike next month amid the critical industry upturn for the memory chipmaker. A joint labor alliance of three of the company’s major unions — Samsung Electronics Labor Union (SELU), National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) and Samsung Electronics Co. Union (SECU) — held a rally at the company’s main semiconductor …
·Korea (the Republic of)
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Coverage Details
Total News Sources48
Leaning Left10Leaning Right6Center17Last UpdatedBias Distribution52% Center
Bias Distribution
- 52% of the sources are Center
52% Center
L 30%
C 52%
R 18%
Factuality
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