Sawt Falasteen - Samsung union to start vote on tentative wage deal

The company and its union reached the provisional agreement late Wednesday following last-minute, government-mediated talks, avoiding a planned 18-day strike that was set to begin on Thursday.

The dispute unfolded against the backdrop of a global artificial intelligence boom that has turbocharged Samsung's chip business while lifting South Korea's economic growth and stock market.

The company and the union's lawyer both told AFP the vote -- initially scheduled to begin on Saturday -- will instead start on Friday afternoon.

A separate union document seen by AFP said the vote will run through May 27 and be conducted online.

Around 70,000 members are expected to be eligible to vote, and the agreement will be "automatically ratified" if more than half cast ballots and a majority of those voting approve it, according to the union's lawyer.

The tentative deal introduces a new bonus pool for employees in the semiconductor division, equivalent to 10.5 percent of the division's operating profit, to be paid in stock.

Samsung semiconductor employees are expected to receive around 509 million won ($337,000) under the new deal, a company official confirmed to AFP on Thursday.

The figure is a rough calculation based on an estimated 331 trillion won in operating profit -- in line with market consensus reported by Yonhap News Agency -- and roughly 78,000 chip employees.

While workers are expected to benefit from the deal, some shareholders voiced opposition, vowing to pursue legal action against the tentative agreement.

On Thursday, a shareholders' group staged a rally near the residence of Samsung chairman Lee Jae-yong, arguing that operating profit-linked bonuses had not been approved through a shareholder resolution and therefore lacked legal validity under the current commercial law.

Samsung memory chips are used in products ranging from consumer electronics to computer processors, while its next-generation high-bandwidth memory chips are key components for scaling up AI data centres.

The tech giant said in April that its first-quarter operating profit jumped roughly 750 percent from a year earlier, while its market capitalisation topped $1 trillion for the first time this month.

The prospect of a strike had raised concerns over the potential impact on South Korea's economy, with semiconductors accounting for around 35 percent of the country's exports.

Q.Najjar--SF-PST