Jun Young-hyun, vice chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics and head of the DS (semiconductor) institutional sector, met with the labor union leadership on the 23rd and proposed to "resume talks." In response, the joint struggle headquarters of the Samsung Electronics union (the struggle headquarters) said that to resume talks, "abolishing the cap on performance bonuses" and "making performance bonuses transparent" must come first.
According to the struggle headquarters, Vice Chairman Jun met with four union leaders in the morning and held talks for about 1 hour and 30 minutes. The struggle headquarters is a coalition formed by the Samsung Group supra-enterprise labor union Samsung Electronics branch (supra-enterprise union), the National Samsung Electronics Labor Union (Jeonsamno), and the Samsung Electronics Companion Union. This meeting took place after Jeonsamno on the 19th announced a "press conference to declare the start of industrial action condemning the incompetent management" in front of Chairman Lee's home that day, prompting management to propose a meeting with the vice chairman. Jeonsamno canceled the press conference on the 20th, the day after it announced the schedule.
The struggle headquarters said, "The vice chairman said he is aware of current employee grievances and arranged a place to talk with the labor union to resolve them," and "also conveyed a willingness that it would be good for labor and management to resume talks and discuss." He proposed discussing specific matters, including key demands, at the bargaining table.
However, the struggle headquarters said it "made it clear that abolishing the cap on OPI (excess profit performance bonus) and making performance bonuses transparent must come first as a precondition for resuming talks." It added, "The vice chairman said he would review the union's position and noted that various considerations are needed on how to allocate among DS institutional sector business divisions," and "(the vice chairman) also said that if necessary, we should meet again in the short term to talk, and if talks resume, it will be announced to union members."
The struggle headquarters secured a majority in a strike vote on the 18th. Accordingly, it said it would hold a rally on Apr. 21 and launch a general strike starting in May.