SEOUL (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics’ main union in South Korea voted in favour of a wage increase deal on Wednesday, the company said.
Last month, the tech giant and the union struck the deal for a 5.1% pay rise for this year, which needed to be ratified by union members.
The National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) has roughly 36,000 members, which make up about 30% of the company’s South Korean workforce.
The NSEU carried out strikes last year for better pay and working conditions, but the company said at the time that they did not disrupt production.
The lingering labour dispute has been a distraction for the world’s biggest memory chipmaker, which is struggling to navigate competition in semiconductors used for artificial intelligence (AI) applications.
Apart from the wage increase, Samsung will offer employees points to purchase its products, and 30 shares in the company, Samsung Electronics said in a statement.
(Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Ed Davies)
