(Reuters) – South Korea’s main union at Samsung Electronics said on Tuesday it would begin a four-day strike from Thursday to put pressure on the company after talks with management broke down in July.
“The strike is strategically designed to harm the company,” Lee Hyun-kuk, vice president of the National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU), said live on YouTube.
The union, whose 36,500 members make up more than a fifth of Samsung Electronics’ workforce in South Korea, expects the company will not have enough workers to support production lines during the strike, especially as many will be off for the national holiday on Thursday.
Samsung said in a statement that it plans to ensure there is no disruption to production and to adhere to the principle of “no work, no pay” while continuing its efforts to resume negotiations with the union.
The union had declared an indefinite strike in July, but agreed to return to work in early August after a series of negotiations with management failed.
He will continue to demand better wages and benefits from the tech giant by organizing more strikes, he added.
Samsung Electronics reported a more than fifteen-fold increase in operating profit in the second half of the year at the end of July.
(Reporting by Heekyong Yang; editing by Kate Entringer; by Leo Marchandon)
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