As Samsung Electronics' union has announced a general strike for next month, major foreign media outlets including Bloomberg and Reuters have issued successive warnings that South Korea's militant union culture could shake the global semiconductor supply chain.
The Joint Struggle Headquarters, composed of the Samsung Electronics Super-Enterprise Union's Samsung Electronics Branch, the National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU), and the Samsung Electronics Union Donghaeng, plans to hold a rally at the Pyeongtaek plant in Gyeonggi Province on the 23rd, and intends to launch a general strike from the 21st of next month through June 7th if an agreement with management is not reached.
It is reported that 30,000 to 40,000 union members will attend the rally. At a press conference in front of the Seocho headquarters in Seoul on the 17th, Choi Seung-ho, chairman of the Super-Enterprise Union, stated, "Considering equipment backup during an 18-day strike, the company's losses will amount to at least 20 to 30 trillion won."
Foreign media including Bloomberg characterized this strike movement as "bad news breaking out at the peak of the global hegemony competition over AI leadership," pointing out that the "militant union" culture prevalent in Korean manufacturing is a structural obstacle blocking Samsung's crisis recovery. The concern is that internal conflict could undermine the momentum for a counterattack at a time when restoring competitiveness in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) is urgently needed.
Reuters also extensively reported that the possibility of semiconductor supply chain disruptions is growing due to the intensifying labor-management conflict over performance bonuses, citing the militant union issue as a key variable shaking Samsung's global credibility. China's state-run Xinhua News Agency analyzed that additional burdens will arise on a supply chain already pressured by AI data center demand, and that there could be a chain reaction affecting semiconductor demand industries overall, including automobiles, computers, and smartphones.
Foreign media warned that unlike competitors such as Taiwan's TSMC, which are widening the gap based on government support and stable labor-management relations, Samsung could lose the trust of global customers due to recurring militant union risks. They pointed out that given the semiconductor industry's characteristics, where delivery timelines and supply stability are critical, prolonged labor-management conflict could lead to customer defection.
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