Union: “No change to demands… Strike will run through the 5th”
Company: “We will strengthen communication and add staff”
Company: “We will strengthen communication and add staff”
Samsung Biologics’ union said it will proceed with a planned companywide strike next month. If carried out, it would be the company’s first strike since its founding in 2011. On April 30, the Samsung Group cross-company union’s Samsung Biologics branch announced that “the first general strike scheduled for May 1 will proceed through May 5 with no changes.”
In the afternoon, the union entered talks with management under mediation by the Central Regional Employment and Labor Office. The union said management characterized the meeting as not being a session to discuss pre-submitted agenda items and said it was not a “last-minute negotiation” setting.
Earlier that day, CEO John Rim held a town-hall meeting in which he apologized for failures in communication. He pledged to improve transparency and fairness in personnel systems, recruit additional staff, and work toward an amicable settlement of collective bargaining. Those assurances did not dissuade the union from moving ahead with the full strike.
The union said employees reacted strongly to management’s remarks at the town hall, calling the apology superficial and saying they would not trust promises that are not documented in writing.
The union has demanded “establishing proper personnel principles” and “reducing pay disparities within the group.” When the parties failed to find common ground, the union escalated to a strike.
The union sought a one-time bonus of 30 million KRW per person (approximately $22,500 USD), an average wage increase of 14%, and a distribution of 20% of operating profit as performance pay. Management proposed a 6.2% wage increase.
Labor and management held 13 rounds of negotiations from December through last month but failed to bridge their differences. The union launched a partial strike on April 28, with about 60 members from the materials batching division participating.
Tensions have risen after the union again announced its intent to carry out a full strike. The union represents roughly 4,000 members, about 73% of Samsung Biologics’ 5,455 employees as of last year. More than half of those members — approximately 2,000 — have said they intend to join the full strike.
Samsung Biologics has estimated that a full strike could cause losses of about 640 billion KRW (approximately $480 million USD).
Company officials warn that if biopharmaceutical production halts even for a single day, proteins and other materials can degrade, forcing entire batches to be discarded and resulting in total loss. Industry observers also warn that production disruptions or missed delivery deadlines could undermine global customers’ trust and weaken the company’s competitive position.
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