Samsung closes provisional agreement and avoids strike by 48 thousand workers

: Members of the Samsung Electronics union chant slogans during a protest against the company's pay levels.
REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji/File photo
The Samsung workers' union announced it will suspend the all-out strike that was due to begin on Thursday (21) after reaching a provisional wage agreement with the company. The strike could affect the production of chips used in artificial intelligence and other products.
The union decided to suspend the 18 days of strike planned by nearly 48,000 members to submit the agreement to a vote by workers.
The vote will take place between May 22 and 27, union leader Choi Seung-ho told reporters. An earlier notice posted on the union's website said the vote would take place from May 23 to 28.
Samsung Electronics said in a separate statement that the two parties had reached a tentative agreement on wages and collective bargaining and committed to "building mature and constructive labor relations."
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The last-minute agreement came after several days of failed negotiations. On Wednesday (20), the union announced that it would maintain the strike. Talks resumed later after mediation by South Korean Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon.
According to previous Reuters reports, the union and the company differed over the distribution of performance bonuses between the profitable memory division and the logic chip business, which operates at a loss.
Choi said there was an agreement on how to distribute profits from loss-making areas and said details of the tentative plan would be released soon on the union's website. He also said he hopes workers approve the wage deal.
"We will do our best to stabilize relations between workers and management at Samsung Electronics going forward," he said.
Samsung accounts for nearly a quarter of South Korea's exports and is the world's largest memory chip maker. An interruption in production could put further pressure on prices, at a time when advances in artificial intelligence have increased demand for chips.

Source: G1