Samsung Union Threatens Strike at Critical AI Momentum

Samsung Electronics' union approved a May general strike with an overwhelming 93.1% approval rate. If additional negotiations break down, this would be the second strike since July 2024. With artificial intelligence momentum expanding through deepening partnerships with Nvidia and AMD, the union's strike poses significant risks of production disruptions and erosion of customer trust. Just three hours after the shareholders' meeting ended in a celebratory atmosphere amid expectations that "Samsung Electronics is back," news of the strike drew accusations of "betrayal" from shareholders. There are concerns that the growing "AI momentum"—marked by AMD CEO Lisa Su's visit to Korea to formalize AI cooperation and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's announcement that Samsung would manufacture its inference AI chips—could be derailed by the union's excessive bonus demands and strike action.

What Samsung Electronics needs now is not a general strike but unified cooperation. The union should remember that just a year ago, the company struggled after failing to pass Nvidia's tests. This is the time to run factories at full capacity to meet high-bandwidth memory (HBM) demand and demonstrate tangible results through foundry partnerships extending from Tesla and Qualcomm to Nvidia and AMD. Even converting annual or quarterly contracts to multi-year supply agreements of three to five years would be meaningless without guaranteed predictable production stability. No global big tech company will entrust production to a fab where strike risks persist. The union's warning of "minimum 5 trillion won in losses from an 18-day strike" is nothing short of chilling.

The damage from a strike will ultimately fall back on union members themselves. The excess profit incentive (OPI), for which the union is demanding removal of the cap, is a performance bonus paid when results exceed targets. Excess profits are only possible if HBM4, which the company is pushing to mass-produce as a world first, secures leadership in the AI memory market. Samsung Electronics is more than a private company—it is a national champion at the forefront of the global AI semiconductor competition. This is precisely why the government and National Assembly created the Special Semiconductor Act and the Special Act on U.S. Investment to minimize tariff burdens, and why the public has actively supported semiconductor subsidies. Samsung Electronics' union must take a hard look at whether this is truly the time to strike.