Skip to main content

Strikes at Samsung

From the series Workers’ struggles in the world

The struggle waged by Samsung Electronics workers over the last three years has a particular significance in the panorama of workers’ struggles around the world. A great deal of this significance undoubtedly derives from its having been the first ever strike at the South Korean company where, moreover, no trade union existed until a few years ago: until 2020, Samsung was strictly non-union. But it is also important because, according to trade-union sources, it was the world’s first strike in the crucial chip-production sector. Today these are fundamental and indispensable components for a myriad of products, for both civilian and military use, and they are becoming even more important with the increasing hardware needs of artificial intelligence. This struggle therefore concerns a product, an industry, and consequently a body of wage-earners growing in number, economic weight, and importance on the world market.

Furthermore, as we have analysed in this newspaper, the chip war has become a front in the struggle between the powers, in which Samsung and SK Hynix together have a majority share of global production. This is strongly connected to South Korea, Taiwan, and China – an absolutely uncontrollable market [Lotta Comunista, January 2023 and January 2025].

Samsung’s brand is known all over the world, above all for its smartphones, which rival Apple’s iPhones for the lead in global sales. But it is also known as the world’s main producer of chips.

The industrial dispute, or rather series of disputes, began in the spring of 2024 and lasted over a year before reaching a provisional conclusion. It then restarted in the first months of this year.

Chronicle of an unprecedented struggle

In June 2024, there was the historic first-one-day strike. This was followed by a further three-day strike in July, after which it transformed into an open-ended strike which was interrupted after 25 days and replaced by other forms of struggle. Agreement was reached after lengthy negotiations, suspended and resumed several times, in March and November 2025. The industrial dispute began again in March of this year, with declarations of the intention to strike in the following months. Strike action has already been approved by the workers, with an overwhelming majority (93% in favour), and may be carried out in the course of the next few months, depending on the negotiations. About 6,000 workers at the factory which produces chips in Pyeongtaek, in the province of Gyeonggi, participated in the struggle.

At the heart of the industrial dispute is the wage issue: not the actual salary itself, but above all the variable component linked to the company’s productive results, i.e., the bonuses distributed to the workers, which, in some cases, can amount to as much as 50% of the overall wage. Historically, this is a tool that has been used widely by the company; the trade union now wishes to see it regulated rather than being left to the management’s sole discretion. However, the results gained did not correspond to the union’s demands, with the result that the industrial dispute was resumed just a few months after its initial conclusion. The rigid application of a no labour, no wages rule – i.e., the company’s refusal to consider paying any form of bonus to compensate for the wages lost during the days on strike (a widespread practice in the United States, for example) – has contributed to weakening the workers’ position.

A negotiation equal to the times and challenges

In March of this year, strikes in another South Korean division of the company, Samsung Biologics (in the biopharma and bio-manufacturing sector) involved about 4,000 workers, 90% of whom voted to go on strike if the negotiations fell through. A strike was also unannounced for this division, established in 2011.

In summary, this is the timeline of the still-ongoing industrial dispute which has historical significance for our class and concerns crucially important production centres.

Samsung was one of the pillars of the South Korean economic boom. Its wage-earners, who today number about 125,000 in the country, are mainly among the higher strata of the manufacturing working class. This is partly because the decision of the big conglomerates, the chaebol, to invest heavily in high value-added sectors, especially in electronics and the production of semiconductors, has gradually required an increasingly qualified workforce. The emphasis on Research and Development is considerable, as is the proportion of company technicians employed in this area, not only in Korea but also in various other countries around the world, including the United States.

Until a few years ago, the Samsung chaebol grew by practising a rigid no-union policy, succeeding in keeping the trade unions out of its Korean factories and many of its overseas plants. The unions only managed to gain entry in the form of a company union in 2020, achieving great success in terms of members. The working conditions in these factories, especially working hours, have always been described as particularly onerous and even dangerous. The International Labour Organization (ILO) intervened in 2017, condemning Samsung’s anti-trade union policies, and also the Korean government’s failure to intervene promptly against the serious anti-union actions.

Samsung, which means three stars in Korean, is the name that Lee Byung-chul chose for the company when he founded it shortly before the Second World War: the three stars were to shine always, like the stars in the sky, and were meant to refer to the concepts of greatness, abundance, and power. After more than 80 years, it cannot be denied that the project has been a brilliant success. Samsung, South Korea’s leading chaebol, controls about 80 companies, and is now the world leader in the production of smartphones (in fierce head-to-head competition with Apple) and chips, and is the only company in the world which produces both smartphones and chips. The 260,000 workers in the group’s various companies, more than half of them outside South Korea, make it one of the world’s major companies; in comparison, Boeing, the American aerospace and military group, has 170,000 employees, 20,000 of them outside the US.

The diversification of its production – which covers many sectors, from shipyards to chemistry, consumer electronics and white goods, as well as smartphones and chips – and investment abroad have been the dominant themes in Samsung’s strategy in the last 30-40 years. Among the main production centres outside South Korea are: Vietnam and India for smartphones – the biggest factory of these products in the world was opened in 2018 in New Delhi – the United States (semiconductors), and Mexico (electrical appliances). Its production activity in China has recently fallen significantly in favour of investment in nearby Vietnam. Research & Development is also significant, carried out in a number of veritable R&D factories across various countries where tens of thousands of wage-earning technicians are concentrated.

Behind the world-famous brand lay a workplace culture. For a long time, the company succeeded in controlling the workers by making extensive use of the tool of wage bonuses. It also employed vindictive, repressive measures that appeared anachronistic but which in practice were applied until very recently. The US Labor Notes summarises the situation as follows: Samsung’s brutal anti-union history and the sacrifices of many of its workers should shatter the myth that good benefits and pay alone can substitute for labour’s own collective bargaining power. Commenting on the 2024 strikes, East Asia Forum observes that South Korea’s cultural characteristics may have also influenced acceptance of such labour systems [Samsung Electronics Union Strikes a Chord With South Korean Society, October 25th, 2024].

A recent analysis of South Korean industrialisation and industrial relations reaches similar conclusions: South Korea’s labour system has evolved significantly from traditional paternalistic models to more structured frameworks, emphasising workers’ rights and collective bargaining. Hence, the old way of managing relations between companies and employees, organisations no longer meets the demands of the new information society era [European Research Studies Journal, Issue 2, 2025].

A history of strong strike action

As an analyst in East Asia Forum observes: The strike […] challenged what was for decades a strictly non-union company and may foreshadow changes to the country’s labour movement. […] Updating the country’s company-union relationships would be beneficial for both parties in the long term [October 25th, 2024]. But this is no novelty: in spite of State repression and the overwhelming weight of the chaebol, the process of industrialisation of South Korea in the postwar period was accompanied by long, violent, and regular strike actions.

Today, even at this South Korean giant in the fast-growing field of electronics, embroiled in the chip war in the anarchic world market, workers’ demands have found expression in the form of strikes. This is an issue that will merit further discussion.

Translated from the original work by , published in Lotta Comunista, , p. 18.

Labels:

Popular posts in the last week

Reckless Bets on Migrants in California

Internationalism No. 78-79, August-September 2025 Page 11 From the series Chronicles of the new American nationalism The tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on allies, partners and opponents of the United States have opened a phase of negotiations with the affected countries and caused reactions from some key States. The legal opposition from almost all areas of the US poses a test: whether States, courts, and Congress can influence trade policy and constrain the expansion of executive powers. Amid conflicting rulings, the tariffs have been reinstated – an outcome that, The New York Times remarks, has “left Washington, Wall Street, and much of the world trying to discern the future of US trade policy”. California’s dispute with the federal government has expanded to immigration policy and the domestic use of military force. The political, economic, and power struggle...
Read more

Opportunities for the Euro and Yuan

Internationalism No. 77, July 2025 Page 13 Estimates by international institutions for April to June confirm the slowdown in global output and trade. The World Bank forecasts a decline in GDP growth from 2.8% in 2024, to 2.3% in 2025, and a sharp fall in trade from 3.4% to 1.8%. The main cause of the new slowdown is the tariff war declared by Donald Trump, who has so far imposed a universal minimum tariff of 10%. The uncertainty arising from his peculiar art of the deal , consisting of lunges, postponements, relaunches, U-turns, and pauses, makes the policy of the world's leading power unpredictable. It is also paying the highest price, with US growth halving, from 2.8% to 1.4%. The Eurozone has been floating at a rate of less than 1% since 2023 and, according to the World Bank, will remain below this level in 2025 and 2026, while the OECD and the ECB predict a return to 1% in 2025. Chin...
Read more

Lotta Comunista: The Origins 1943-1952

Guido La Barbera Contents 9. Preface to the English Edition 13. Preface 19. Useful dates 21. Chapter One «ONE OUGHT TO KNOW WITH WHOM ONE IS DEALING» 25. The balance-of-power theory 27. Theory and the ‘strategy-party’ 29. Chapter Two THE FOUNDRY AND THE PARTISAN STRUGGLE 31. The Savona group 39. Passion disciplined by reason 40. Never again a tool in the hands of others 41. The Genoa group 46. The Sestri Ponente group 48. The groups in Rome and Tuscany 52. The strength of GAAP: ‘only a handful’ 55. Chapter Three LIBERTARIAN COMMUNISM: A DIFFERENT KIND OF COMMUNISM 58. Reckoning with Bordiga...
Read more

Electoral Upheaval and Turmoil Inside Labour

Internationalism No. 88, June 2026 Page 3 From the series European news As Henry Kissinger wrote in his book Leadership (Penguin, 2022), in the British political system, parties are "rigorously institutionalized": "An electoral victory functions first to empower a party in parliament and, as a consequence of that, to install a new premier". Unlike presidential systems such as the American one, "the British system elevates members of the cabinet to the highest echelons of their party". The prime minister's authority "rests primarily on the maintenance of party discipline" because "the dissent of an influential clique, or the machinations of a single magnetic personality, can limit the premier's ability to pursue desired political objectives". "In extraordinary circumstances", warns Kissinger, ...
Read more

An Italianised Europe

Internationalism No. 88 - June 2026 Page 2 In almost four years in government, Italy’s renewed stability has been a key asset for Giorgia Meloni, also encouraging the European adaptation of the italian-style immigrants . However, the backlash from the referendum defeat, a real own goal, has opened a glaring rift that runs through both the end of the current legislature and the prospects for the next. There is debate over the political exhaustion of her government, forced to navigate the narrow path of budgetary statistics and under the threat of what the Financial Times has termed a “coming energy crisis” triggered by the blockade of the strait of Hormuz. At the referendum polls, the left-wing broad coalition “discovered” that it could compete with the centre-right, but no poll shows any substantial changes in the balance of power. The scenario of a “deadlock”, or a narrow majority for one...
Read more

Libertarian Communism: A Different Kind of Communism

Chapter Three LIBERTARIAN COMMUNISM: A DIFFERENT KIND OF COMMUNISM   An examination of the debate within the groups that were to create GAAP (Anarchist Groups of Proletarian Action) gives a vivid picture of the problems that between 1948 and 1951 had to be slowly and painfully faced. Three major confrontations, progressively more serious, took place between Cervetto and Masini in the autumn of 1949 and again in the spring and autumn of 1950. As preparations were being made for the National Conference at Pontedecimo – from which GAAP would be born – debate on the nature of the organisation and on theories of the State and imperialism began to define the characteristics of the new political group, but also revealed the differences. The first step had been to look for ‘a different kind’ of communism in anarchism. Along this road Cervetto , with an ever-surer grasp, would raise the issue that had been first posed by Marx and Lenin : our militant...
Read more

Political Battles of European Leninism

Internationalism No. 73, March 2025 Page 1 Thirty years after the death of Arrigo Cervetto , we are publishing here the concluding passages of the introduction to his Opere Scelte (“Selected Works”) for the series Biblioteca Giovani (“Publications for young people”), soon to be published in Italian. The 1944-45 partisan war in Italy. The political battle within libertarian communism. The Korean War, and the watchword of “neither Washington nor Moscow”. The layoffs at the Ilva and Ansaldo factories, the political battle and trade union defence in the struggles of post-war restructuring. From 1953 onwards, the crisis of Stalinism, the 1956 Suez crisis, the Hungarian uprising, the 1957 Theses and the challenge of theory and strategy vis-à-vis the tendencies of unitary imperialism. The political struggle within Azione Comunista (“Communist Action”) and the Movimento della Sinistra Comunista (“Movement of the Communist Left”). From the 1950s to the early 1970s, t...
Read more

The EU Commission Plans for Rearmament and a Clean Industrial Deal

Internationalism No. 71, January 2025 Page 2 From the series European news Following the European elections which took place on June 6th - 9th, the leaders of the Member States met on June 27th at the European Council. Ursula von der Leyen was nominated as president of the next European Commission, after she was chosen as the European People’s Party’s (EPP) Spitzenkandidat (“leading candidate”). The agreement also included the election of former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa as president of the European Council, and the appointment of former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Subsequently, on July 18th, Parliament elected von der Leyen as president of the Commission by an absolute majority, with 401 votes out of 719 MEPs. On September 17th, von der Leyen presented her team of commissioners to the European Parliament and, two days later, the Council adopted this list of...
Read more

Capitalist Chaos and Artificial Intelligence

Internationalism No. 88, June 2026 Page 1 From the series Artificial Intelligence It may seem curious that the Franciscan friar Paolo Benanti refers to neuroscience and the theories of David Eagleman, which reflect a materialistic conception of consciousness. The explanation probably lies in Eagleman’s self-definition as a possibilian , a not particularly clever neologism that seeks to distinguish itself from atheism, but also from agnosticism: we know too little, so science must keep multiple possibilities open at once. In Engels’ view, agnosticism is shamefaced materialism . The scientist, as such, is a materialist. However, outside his own field, he translates his ignorance into Greek and calls it agnosticism . Eagleman is even more circumspect, so it is understandable that religion sees an opening for itself in the possibilities left open. In Die Zeit , Benan...
Read more

The Four Petrochemical Giants

Internationalism No. 86, April 2026 Page 15 From the series Major industrial groups in China When the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, oil extraction in the country was practically non-existent, and the country was completely dependent on imports. The exploration and development of domestic oil resources required a major effort. As Jin Zhang reports in his book Catch-up and Competitiveness in China [Routledge, 2004]: The required massive human resources were supplied by the People's Liberation Army (PLA). In 1952, Mao Zedong ordered the reorganisation of the 57 th Division of the 19 th Army of the PLA into the 1 st Division of Oil . The effort led to the discovery of several oil fields, the most significant of which was in Daqing, Heilongjiang Province, in northeastern China, in 1959. It became operational the following year, reaching a ...
Read more