Samsung reached a preliminary agreement with its union and managed to avoid what could become a strike capable of paralyzing the world’s largest memory chip maker.
In a statement released on Wednesday night (20), the South Korean company reported that “workers and management have reached a provisional agreement on wages and collective agreement”.
The union also released a note confirming the agency’s previous report Yonhap about the suspension of the strike that was scheduled to take place between May 21st and June 7th.
The news comes after several days of back-and-forth negotiations and eliminates, for now, the risk of stoppages in both Samsung’s production and its plans to accelerate the development of new generation semiconductors.
The union has advised members that they will vote on the 2026 interim wage agreement between 9am on May 23rd and 10am on May 28th.
Any stoppage in Samsung’s production lines would have an impact on the entire global technology chain. The suspension of the strike reduces fears of a drop in the supply of chips from the company, currently the world’s largest supplier of components used in equipment ranging from data center servers to smartphones and electric vehicles.
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Even so, the negotiations exposed a broader climate of tension in the country, with workers pushing for a greater share of the profits that groups such as Samsung and SK Hynix have been making from the global boom in investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The union had been defending the end of the current bonus cap, the allocation of 15% of operating profit to employee bonuses and the inclusion of these rules in employment contracts. Union leaders cited the example of SK Hynix, which last year agreed to set aside 10% of annual operating profit for a performance bonus fund.
Samsung, in turn, proposed allocating 10% of operating profit to bonuses, in addition to a special one-off remuneration package above industry standards. Company executives argue that the union’s demands would be difficult to sustain in the long term.
“Concerns are growing that any material disruption in production or increased operational uncertainty at Samsung Electronics could place additional pressure on the global memory semiconductor market, worsening supply bottlenecks, price volatility, purchasing uncertainty and the stability of the overall supply chain,” the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea said in a statement released this month.
© 2026 Bloomberg L.P.
