As the Samsung Electronics labor union insists on pushing ahead with a general strike, a shareholders' group said it will pursue legal action over the overall wage talks and industrial action between Samsung Electronics labor and management. The targets are the Samsung Electronics board of directors and management, and the entire Samsung Electronics Joint Struggle Headquarters of the labor union.

As the Samsung Electronics labor-management talks fail to reach agreement even in post-mediation and the risk of a general strike mounts, with the government's emergency arbitration authority also being discussed, the Samsung Group flag flutters in the wind at the company's headquarters building in Seocho-gu, Seoul, on the 13th. With post-mediation also falling through, the union is increasingly likely to proceed with a general strike as scheduled. The union currently plans an 18-day general strike starting on the 21st./Courtesy of News1

According to the industry on the 15th, a minority shareholders' group called the Korea Shareholders' Action Headquarters said in a press release that it would initiate legal action against the Samsung Electronics board of directors and management, and the Samsung Electronics Joint Struggle Headquarters of the labor union.

The Shareholders' Action Headquarters argues that codifying the union's demand to pay "a flat 15% of operating profit as performance bonuses" directly violates the principle of capital sufficiency, a mandatory provision under the Commercial Act. Operating profit is an indicator before deducting corporate tax and statutory reserves, and taking and distributing it in advance under the name of labor costs constitutes an unlawful distribution that infringes on shareholders' property rights, that is, dividends.

It also plans to file a lawsuit to confirm the invalidity of any resolution and seek an injunction to maintain the status of unlawful acts if management accepts the union's demands and forces through a board resolution, on grounds of directors' breach of duty of loyalty and occupational breach of trust.

It warned that it would also hold the union directly accountable by defining the strike as an "illegal strike." The Shareholders' Action Headquarters said, "Management performance bonuses are not wages, which are direct compensation for the provision of labor, but rather a distribution of business profits, that is, capital," and added, "A strike to force this lacks legitimacy and is an illegal strike."

Therefore, it plans to regard disruptions to semiconductor production and damage to corporate value caused by the strike as direct and intentional infringements of shareholders' property rights and to seek civil damages in a substantial amount.

Shareholders plan to recruit Samsung Electronics shareholders and a nationwide class of plaintiffs through the shareholder-activism platform ACT on the 21st, when the Samsung Electronics union has announced a general strike.

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