The labor union at Samsung Biologics (207940.KS) will proceed with a full-scale strike next month as planned, marking the first walkout since the company's founding in 2011.
The Samsung Biologics chapter of the Samsung Group Supra-Enterprise Labor Union said Wednesday that "the first general strike on May 1 will proceed through May 5 without change."
The union held talks with management in the afternoon under the mediation of the Central Regional Employment and Labor Office. The union said management "communicated in advance that this was not a meeting to discuss specific agenda items," adding that "from the beginning, this was not a 'last-minute negotiation' in nature."
Earlier that morning, CEO John Rim held a town hall meeting and apologized to employees, saying, "We have not engaged in active communication." He pledged to strengthen the transparency and fairness of the human resources system, hire additional personnel to address staffing shortages, and reach an amicable wage and collective bargaining agreement. However, the pledges failed to halt the full-scale strike.
Regarding the town hall meeting, the union said, "Employees are actually pushing back strongly against management's remarks," adding that "the internal sentiment is that it is merely a verbal apology and cannot be trusted unless put in writing."
The union had demanded "establishing proper HR principles" and "resolving wage gaps within the group," but resorted to a strike after failing to find common ground with the company.
The union demanded a 30 million won incentive payment per person, an average 14% wage increase, and distribution of 20% of operating profit as performance bonuses. The company proposed a 6.2% wage increase.
Labor and management held 13 rounds of negotiations from December last year through last month but failed to narrow their differences. The union launched a partial strike on April 28. About 60 union members from the materials subdivision unit took part in the partial strike.
Tensions are rising as the union has reiterated its intention to proceed with the full-scale strike. The union has about 4,000 members, accounting for 73% of Samsung Biologics' 5,455 employees as of last year. More than half of the members, or about 2,000, have reportedly indicated their intention to join the full-scale strike.
Samsung Biologics has estimated that losses from a full-scale strike would reach 640 billion won ($470 million).
In the biopharmaceutical manufacturing process, if production halts even for a single day, proteins and other materials deteriorate and must be discarded entirely. Some in the industry also worry that production disruptions leading to product defects or missed delivery deadlines could erode the trust of global clients and weaken the company's competitiveness.
