Samsung Electronics is facing its first-ever strike in South Korea.
The tech giant was founded in 1969, and the National Samsung Electronics Union — which represents thousands of Samsung workers in South Korea — has just announced plans to hold a one-day protest.
“We can’t stand persecution against labor unions anymore. We are declaring a strike in the face of the company’s neglect of laborers,” a union representative said during a news conference.
The National Samsung Electronics Union — which has around 28,000 members — has warned that it could launch a full-scale strike in the future.
Samsung Electronics, on the other hand, plans to continue to negotiate with the union to resolve the issue.
Meanwhile, earlier this month, workers at the first unionized Apple store in the U.S. authorized a strike.
“We have more bargaining dates coming up,” David DiMaria, the machinists union’s lead organizer at the Apple store in Towson, Maryland, said at the time.
“We’re going to go to the table,” DiMaria continued. “We’re hoping the company will bargain in good faith, but frankly what we’ve seen over the past year or so is that they really haven’t been. … We filed charges based on that they’re not living up to their obligation under federal law to bargain in good faith with the union.”
