The artificial intelligence boom has made semiconductor companies some of the most valuable businesses in the world. Now, workers want a bigger share of the profits.
According to a report by the Financial Times, unions representing workers at Samsung Electronics are threatening strike action over wages and bonuses tied to the company’s surging semiconductor profits. The unions are demanding a 7% wage increase and want workers to receive 15% of each division’s operating profit as bonuses.
The Financial Times reported that the unions have threatened an 18-day walkout beginning May 21 if an agreement is not reached. The dispute comes as demand for AI chips continues to soar globally, particularly for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips used in AI data centres.
Samsung’s profits have risen sharply alongside the AI boom. According to the FT, the company reported a record ₩47.2 trillion ($32.6 billion) net profit in the first quarter, nearly six times higher than the same period last year. Most of those profits reportedly came from Samsung’s semiconductor division. On Wednesday, Samsung’s market value also crossed $1 trillion after its shares surged to an all-time high.
Workers are now demanding a larger share of that growth. Last month, around 40,000 employees reportedly rallied outside Samsung’s factory complex in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul. One Samsung worker planning to join the strike told the Financial Times they had hoped “the treatment of graduates from the nation’s top engineering universities would improve,” but after observing conditions inside the company, “it is time to take action.”
The dispute also reflects growing comparisons between Samsung and rival chipmaker SK Hynix, another major beneficiary of the AI boom. According to the Financial Times, SK Hynix has already agreed to set aside 10% of operating profit for workers over the next decade, potentially resulting in extremely large payouts if AI-driven profits continue rising.
A former Samsung semiconductor employee, Park Jun-young, told the FT that the compensation gap between the two companies has become significant. “At Hynix, you’d get a bonus of Won250mn or Won300mn ($172,000 to $206,000),” Park said, describing the difference as “huge.”
Negotiations between Samsung management and unions are reportedly close on the amount of bonuses to be paid, with the company said to have offered around 13% of operating profit. However, the major disagreement remains whether those payouts should become permanent contractual obligations rather than one-time offers.
Beyond wages, analysts say any prolonged strike could affect global semiconductor supply chains at a time when AI companies are aggressively securing chip supply for data centre expansion. Professor Kwon Seok-joon of Sungkyunkwan University told the FT that while direct losses from an 18-day strike could reach between ₩10 trillion and ₩17 trillion ($6.9 billion to $11.7 billion), “the bigger damage is indirect,” pointing to wider effects on suppliers and Samsung’s ambitions in advanced AI chips.
The standoff highlights a broader tension emerging across the AI industry: as companies generate enormous wealth from artificial intelligence infrastructure, workers are increasingly asking how much of that boom should flow back to the people helping build it.
Damilare Odedina
