GoKawiilTens 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. Samsung has long been South Korea’s most coveted employer. The bonus gap with SK Hynix is putting pressure on that advantage.
Not everyone at the rally was on the union’s side. Shareholders also gathered directly across the street, accusing workers of undermining the company at a crucial juncture.
The timing is bad for Samsung. The AI boom is creating a chip shortage, with the world’s top three memory chip manufacturers, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron racing to meet demand from AI data centers. The companies have redirected resources away from their consumer businesses to make high-bandwidth memory chips for AI uses, as they command far higher margins.
AI data centers now consume an estimated 70% of high-end memory chips produced worldwide, leaving consumers to fight over what’s left. The prices of conventional memory chips, like DRAM, have skyrocketed since early 2025.
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