Thousands of Samsung Electronics Co. workers walked off the job Monday to stage a rally demanding better pay, beginning the biggest organized labor action in the South Korean conglomerate’s half-century history, Jenny Lee, Yoolim Lee, and Sohee Kim reported for Bloomberg News.

Disgruntled employees and union supporters gathered in the pouring rain outside one of Samsung’s biggest chipmaking complexes south of Seoul. I Photo: Yonhap News Agency
Disgruntled employees and union supporters gathered in the pouring rain outside one of Samsung’s biggest chipmaking complexes south of Seoul.
Wearing red headbands proclaiming “total strike” and black raincoats, they formed neatly organized ranks along a broad thoroughfare, chanting slogans and singing in unison with raised fists.
Union leaders, who said more than 6,500 signed up for the action, hope the highly publicized protest galvanizes a three-day walkout that will send a message to Korea’s biggest company.
Police later put the turnout at closer to half that, at about 3,100. Samsung’s largest union spent weeks preparing for the walkout after negotiations over pay and vacation time collapsed last month.
It marked an escalation from a single-day strike in early June—the first in Samsung’s 55 years of existence. The action is intended to drive home their demands by disrupting production at one of the company’s most advanced chip facilities, union leaders say.
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