Company Warns Disruptions Could Cost W640.0 Billion Amid 14% Wage Demands
Samsung Biologics Plant 4 (Photo provided by Samsung Biologics)
The full-scale strike by the Samsung Biologics labor union is continuing for a second day.
The union began the full-scale strike on May 1, Labor Day, and plans to continue it through May 5. Of the union’s 4,000 members, about 2,800 were counted as having taken part in the strike on the first day.
The union has demanded an average wage increase of 14% and the payment of an encouragement bonus of W30.0 million ($21,600) per person. The company, however, has maintained that it is difficult to accept the demands because of its financial conditions and the need to secure resources for future growth investments.
Labor and management held 13 rounds of negotiations from last December through March this year, but failed to reach an agreement. The current strike is the first since the company was founded in 2011.
On the first day of the strike, the two sides continued trading blame. The company said, “The demands included matters directly tied to personnel and management rights, making it difficult to find common ground in negotiations.” The union, by contrast, said, “The core issue is not the level of the demands, but that the company failed to present a revised proposal that union members could accept,” pointing to what it called poor handling of the negotiations.
The two sides are scheduled to resume talks on May 4 under mediation by the Jungbu Regional Employment and Labor Office. However, it remains unclear whether a settlement can be reached, as they have failed to narrow their differences despite months of negotiations.
The company said a full-scale strike could result in losses of at least W640.0 billion ($460.80 million) if it causes disruptions to production processes. It explained that because of the nature of continuous production processes, products must be discarded if operations are halted, which could increase the scale of the damage.
In an earlier partial strike involving about 60 workers conducted from April 28 to April 30, some processes were also suspended, and the company estimated losses at that time at about W150.0 billion ($108.00 million).
The union argued, “Even if our demands are fully accepted, the cost would be less than the estimated losses,” and said, “Management should have entered negotiations while presenting additional revised proposals.” It went on to criticize the current management, saying, “The current management is unable to make normal business judgments.”
Jung Suk-yee
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