Tens of thousands of Samsung Electronics workers held a rally at the company's Pyeongtaek campus in South Korea on Thursday to signal they are prepared to walk off the job for an 18-day strike next month.
The dispute, at its core, is over money. The workers' union wants Samsung to scrap its performance bonus cap and redirect 15% of its operating profit directly to its workers.
Samsung has not agreed, and talks have stalled. Meanwhile, the electronics giant is fighting the union both in court and at the negotiating table.
Rival chipmaker SK Hynix is reportedly expected to pay average bonuses of roughly $400,000 per person to its 35,000 employees early next year.
Samsung has offered employees in its memory chip division compensation exceeding that of its rivals — an offer the union has so far rejected, according to local media reports.
A Samsung spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication. The timing is bad for Samsung as the AI boom creates a chip shortage, with the world's top three memory chip manufacturers racing to meet demand from AI data centers.