Last year, Samsung employees went on a strike for the first time in five decades. Now, these unionized workers are back at it, threatening a much longer, 18-day protest-led work hiatus. At the heart of this issue lies a perception mismatch, where Samsung is seen ripping off its workers to earn ginormous profits. The question remains: who will blink first?
Samsung is seen as short-handing its workers, and those employees are now pushing back
According to the Korea Herald, Samsung's union workers are currently demanding 15 percent of the company's annual operating profit, which amounts to around $30 billion, in bonuses. Otherwise, these union workers are threatening an 18-day strike that would begin on May 21 and last until June 07.
For obvious reasons, if Samsung's unionized workers do go on such a prolonged strike, this work hiatus would severely disrupt Samsung's operational cadence, potentially disrupting the company's entire supply chain.
Of course, this is not the first time that Samsung's workers have gone on strike. In fact, they did so just last year, when the work was halted for a much more manageable 3-day period.
Meanwhile, as we reported recently, Samsung now expects its total sales for the first quarter of 2026 to amount to 133 trillion won ($88.273 billion) vs. the consensus estimate of 116.81 trillion won.
More astonishing still, Samsung expects to report 57.2 trillion won ($37.8 billion) in operating profit for Q1 2026, which corresponds to an astounding year-over-year growth of 700 percent! What's more, this figure equates to a sequential growth of 184 percent vs. the operating profit of 20.1 trillion won that the South Korean tech behemoth had reported in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Analysts at KB Securities now believe Samsung will earn a total operating profit of 327 trillion won in 2026 and an unfathomable 488 trillion won in 2027, thereby becoming the most profitable company globally, eclipsing NVIDIA's expected operating profit by a material, if narrow, margin.
Against this lucrative backdrop, it is hardly a surprise that Samsung's unionized workers are clamoring for a bigger share of the proverbial financial pie.
About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.
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