Samsung Electronics Company Ltd.: Striking a Balance Between Operation and Workforce

In May 2024, South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Company Ltd. (SEC) faced its first-ever strike in its 55-year history, as the National Samsung Electronics Union called for a one-day work stoppage on June 7, 2024, to demand better pay. The strike targeted SEC’s semiconductor division, which produced critical components like memory chips, universal serial bus drives, and camera sensors. This division, once a leader in global semiconductor revenues, had fallen to third place by 2023, trailing Intel Corporation and Nvidia Corporation, and recorded its largest financial loss since the company’s founding. Amid mounting challenges from the artificial intelligence (AI)–driven market and declining revenue, the strike intensified pressure on SEC’s leadership. Jun Young-hyun, head of the semiconductor division at SEC, framed the AI era as both a challenge and an opportunity. The strike underscored the need for SEC to manage labour negotiations carefully to mitigate operational disruptions and safeguard its competitive position in the semiconductor industry.

This unprecedented strike (industrial action) at SEC demonstrates the need for organizations to better understand employee relations (ER) and copartner with their employees to achieve organizational outcomes. The case also highlights the strategies of collective bargaining negotiations to adopt robust practices that benefit both the parties. Further, it underlines some benefits and disadvantages of industrial actions and workers’ right to form a union. After working through the case and the assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:<br><br><ul><li>Describe the intricacies of ER within the context of intense and competitive conditions.</li><li>Develop an understanding of a union and its need.</li><li>Understand the advantages and disadvantages of industrial actions.</li><li>Understand the process of collective bargaining to reach to a win-win situation.</li></ul>

• workers' union
• employee relations
• collective bargaining
• negotiation strategies
• strike action
• industrial action
• industrial dispute
• labor relations
• worker rights
• employee engagement
• union negotiations
• labor unions
• collective bargaining process
• union demands
• employee benefits
• wage negotiations
• workforce disruption
• conflict resolution
• labor laws
• workplace strikes