People Power Party Gyeonggi governor candidate Yang Hyang-ja on the 16th said of the Samsung Electronics union's general strike, "If the semiconductor industry stops, Korea stops."
At her campaign office that day, Yang held an emergency news conference and said, "Samsung semiconductors are not the private property of a single company," adding, "It is a dangerous idea to bring a national key industry to a halt." Yang, a high school graduate, joined Samsung Electronics and rose to executive director before entering politics as a businessperson.
Yang also said, "The semiconductor supply chain is directly linked to the global economy beyond Korea's economy," and "The labor-management conflict at Samsung semiconductors is not a simple internal issue of corporations but a matter of national security and the global industrial order."
She continued, "Labor and management must come to their senses and prevent catastrophe through dialogue," adding, "The union must stop extreme struggle and return to the negotiating table, and management must also do its utmost to communicate with and persuade the union until the last moment."
In addition, Yang said the government should actively step in to address and resolve the labor-management issue at Samsung Electronics.