SEOUL, South Korea \u2014 A labour union representing several thousand Samsung Electronics employees asked a court on Tuesday to nullify a bonus agreement between the South Korean tech giant and its largest union.<\/p>\n
Samsung has emerged as a key player in the fast-evolving artificial intelligence industry thanks to its highly advanced memory chips.<\/p>\n
The company has recently concluded high-stakes negotiations with its largest union over a bonus wage deal, averting a major strike that had raised concerns about the potential impact on the national economy.<\/p>\n
Under the agreement, around 78,000 employees of the chip division — out of the company’s 125,000 domestic workforce — are eligible to receive a bonus of roughly $330,000 this year, based on estimates of annual operating profit.<\/p>\n
But the deal has left many in non-chip divisions disgruntled, as they are expected to receive significantly lower benefits, worth around $4,000.<\/p>\n
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By signing up with an email address, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the Terms of Service<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n The minority union with around 13,000 members had initially filed an injunction seeking to halt a vote among employees to approve the deal, which concluded last week.<\/p>\n Following its approval, “we have amended an injunction application, requesting the suspension of the effectiveness of the tentative agreement,” a lawyer representing the minority union said in a message to AFP.<\/p>\n Frenzied demand for memory chips powering AI data centres has turbocharged Samsung’s earnings.<\/p>\n The firm said in April that first-quarter operating profit surged roughly 750 percent year-on-year, while its market value topped $1 trillion for the first time this month.<\/p>\n Under the union’s 10-year deal — tied to ambitious performance targets — annual bonuses for employees in the semiconductor division would amount to 10.5 percent of their segment’s operating profit.<\/p>\n The bonuses will be paid in shares alongside an additional 1.5 percent in cash.<\/p>\n The Samsung agreement has fuelled labour demands across South Korea, with workers in sectors ranging from biotech and autos to shipbuilding asking for a larger share of corporate profits through bonuses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEOUL, South Korea \u2014 A labour union representing several thousand Samsung Electronics employees asked a court on Tuesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[4288,23814,23807,23806,17399,23815,23810,23808,23812,10355,3990,23811,23809,613,23813,127,276,15326,23805,33,23816],"class_list":["post-39169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-samsung-electronics","tag-ai-data-centres","tag-annual-bonuses","tag-artificial-intelligence-industry","tag-bonus-agreement","tag-chip-division","tag-corporate-profits","tag-domestic-workforce","tag-high-stakes-negotiations","tag-injunction-application","tag-labour-union","tag-memory-chips","tag-minority-union","tag-national-economy","tag-operating-profit","tag-performance-targets","tag-samsung","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-semiconductor-division","tag-seo-meta-keywords-samsung-electronics","tag-south-korea","tag-south-korean-tech-giant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}