About 40,000 Samsung Electronics employees rallied on April 23, 2026, pressing the company for a larger share of its profits driven by soaring demand for AI chips. The unions warned that, if wage talks fail, they could launch an 18-day strike starting May 21 — a stoppage that would risk disrupting production of semiconductors vital to the AI industry.
What the unions want
Unions say Samsung’s current pay proposal does not reflect the company’s strong performance: the firm’s shares have jumped nearly 300% over the past year as AI-related chip demand surged. A central demand is the removal of a bonus cap set at 50% of annual base salary; unions argue that the cap prevents workers from sharing fairly in the windfall.
They point to a concrete example: a chip-division employee earning 76 million won (about $51,000) would receive a 2025 bonus of 38 million won ($26,000) under the cap — reportedly less than a third of what a comparable role at rival SK Hynix would receive. SK Hynix eliminated its bonus cap last September.
Market context and stakes
Samsung and SK Hynix together make roughly two-thirds of the world’s memory chips. Since the launch of services like ChatGPT in 2022, demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) has exploded; SK Hynix has become Nvidia’s primary HBM supplier, overtaking Samsung.
Unions say a failure to improve pay would justify prolonged industrial action. They estimate that a production halt could cost Samsung more than 1 trillion won (about $700 million) per day. Samsung has said it will keep negotiating for a quick agreement but has rejected calls to fully lift the bonus cap. Instead, the company said it would allocate extra funding so memory-division workers could earn more than competitors this year.
Risks beyond pay
Samsung warned that even a short disruption could damage customer trust and take years to repair. The broader supply chain has already faced strain: geopolitical tensions in the Middle East have tightened access to materials like helium and driven up energy costs, adding risk to chipmakers that are benefiting from the AI boom.
Labor context
Long known for resisting organized labor, Samsung experienced its first-ever worker strike in 2024. The recent April rally at Samsung’s Pyeongtaek complex — the world’s largest single semiconductor manufacturing site — underscores growing worker confidence in pushing for a larger share of the sector’s AI-driven gains.
Negotiations remain ongoing; both sides say they want to avoid disruption, but with a strike deadline set, the coming weeks will be critical for Samsung’s wage talks and for the wider AI hardware supply chain.