The National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU), the largest labor group at Samsung, issued a final ultimatum on Thursday: if management fails to respond to wage and bonus demands by 10:00 AM local time on Friday (May 15), the union will proceed with an 18-day strike starting May 21. The union warned that this would be the longest and largest strike in Samsung's history.
Broken talks push labor relations to the brink
The dispute dates back to early this year. Samsung's HBM business has seen record profits amid the AI boom, but employees argue they haven't received a fair share. In March, the union secured strike authorization with 93% support. They demand higher base pay and bonuses comparable to rival SK Hynix. Samsung offered a one-time special bonus of around 340,000 won, but the union rejected it as a short-term fix rather than structural compensation reform.
Multiple rounds of talks, including government-mediated sessions, have failed to close the gap. The final mediated meeting earlier this month collapsed, prompting the union to pre-announce the strike.
Chip supply chain braces for a hard hit
If the strike runs its full 18 days starting May 21, Samsung's DRAM and NAND Flash production lines will be halted, potentially for over a month when factoring in restart delays. Samsung is a dominant player in global memory markets and supplies HBM3 and HBM4 high-bandwidth memory to Nvidia—key components for AI servers and crypto mining rigs.
Analysts estimate total losses could exceed 9 trillion won (approximately $6.5 billion). Memory prices, already climbing this year, could spike further, impacting smartphones, PCs, and crypto miners who rely on stable memory costs. For GPU miners still active in proof-of-work networks, higher VRAM prices could squeeze margins.
Samsung management has not commented publicly. Observers see a low probability of a last-minute deal, meaning the strike—and its ripple effects on global chip supply—is likely to begin as scheduled.