Dispute Over Bonus Payments Leads to General Strike at Samsung

Storage Crisis Could Worsen Dispute Over Bonus Payments Leads to General Strike at Samsung

2026-04-29 From Susanne Braun | Translated by AI 2 min Reading Time

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The Samsung trade union has announced an 18-day general strike for the period from May 21 to June 7, 2026. Up to 40,000 employees are expected to take part, which is likely to lead to noticeable production losses in the extremely tight memory market.

The Samsung Group United Union has announced an 18-day general strike at Samsung Electronics.(Image: Samsung) — The Samsung Group United Union has announced an 18-day general strike at Samsung Electronics.
(Image: Samsung)

The Samsung Group United Union confirmed on April 23, 2026 that an 18-day general strike will take place at Samsung Electronics from May 21. According to estimates by South Korean media, up to 40,000 employees could take part in the work stoppage, which in turn will result in significant production losses—at a time when the situation surrounding memory chips is already tense.

The action is directed against what the union sees as insufficient bonus payments from Samsung and hits a sore spot. It has just been announced that competitor SK Hynix could pay each employee an average bonus of 700 million won in the coming year. This corresponds to around 510,000 US dollars at current exchange rates in April 2026.

The union is calling on Samsung's management to earmark 15 percent of operating profits for employee bonuses, as The Korea Herald reports. The management, in turn, proposed to adopt SK Hynix's 10 percent level, which the union rejected. It is now expected that 30 to 40 percent of the union members could take part in the strike.

Production Losses Expected

Analysts assume that production at the affected plants in Pyeongtaek and Hwaseong could fall by 3 to 4 percent for DRAM and 2 to 3 percent for NAND. Following a union meeting on April 23, according to News1, wafer transfer volumes fell significantly during the night shift, namely by 58.1 percent in the foundry division and by 74.3 percent in the Giheung S1 line. Memory production was less affected with a decline of 18.4 percent, although DRAM processes fell more sharply.

The union estimates the total damage in the event of a full strike at 20 to 30 trillion won (approx. 13.5 to 20 billion US dollars). Even if the strike ends after 18 days, production could take another two to three weeks to return to normal levels, as automated production lines have to be restarted and brought into stable operation.

Concern Among Cloud Providers

Samsung is the world's largest memory manufacturer (Q4 2025) with a market share of 36% for DRAM and 28% for NAND, according to TrendForce. Even a production disruption of 2 to 4 percent could act as a catalyst and drive prices up further in an already tight market. Hyperscalers and cloud providers such as Google and Amazon, which rely on Samsung's server DRAM and enterprise SSDs, would be affected. However, the impact of the strike could also be felt on a smaller scale, in availability and price developments. Samsung's competitors SK Hynix and Micron are then likely to benefit. According to ZDNet, prices for high-performance server DRAM and enterprise SSDs will be particularly volatile because only a few manufacturers have mastered mass production. (sb)

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