Demanding Bonus Equality, Thousands Of Samsung Electronic Workers Strike Work

Thousands of Samsung unions strike for work (photo: dock. Samsung)

JAKARTA Thousands of workers in Samsung Electronics carried out a strike on Monday, July 8. The strike action will last for three days demanding the rights of workers that have not been fulfilled. The Samsung National Electronic Workers Union (NSEU), which consists of 30,000 people or a quarter of the total number of workers in Samsung South Korea, demands an additional one-day leave per year. They also request changes to the employee bonus system. According to analysts, as reported by Reuters, this strike did not have a major impact on device production. Although the NSEU membership is quite large, the participation of its employees is very low. This is not the first strike action carried out by workers at Samsung Electronics South Korea. In June, a number of NSEU members stopped working with the same demands, namely the addition of leave time to all employees. Samsung also said that this action did not interfere with production due to the strike being carried out a day after the holiday and not many workers applied for leave. Therefore, device production can still run.

However, NSEU President Son Woo-Mok denied that the participation of this strike was very low. He explained that NSEU did not have enough time to educate all members regarding the issues they were fighting for. "Education about labor unions... is not enough. However, I don't think this participation is low because our labor unions are still young compared to other labor unions," said Woo-Mok. Meanwhile, NSEU Vice President Lee Hyun-Kuk, said that he and other members would strike further if Samsung did not correct his proposal. According to them, Samsung still does not meet the demands of the workers. Union members only want to get equality in bonus systems, both ordinary workers and executives. Currently, workers usually get bonuses from operating profits, while executives receive bonuses based on personal performance.