WORKERS at Samsung Electronics in South Korea declared an indefinite strike today to pressure the country’s biggest company to accept their calls for higher pay and other benefits.

Thousands of members of the National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) launched a temporary, three-day strike on Monday.

But the union said today that it was announcing an indefinite strike, accusing the management of being unwilling to negotiate.

The NSEU’s demands include a 3.5 per cent pay rise, additional vacation days and compensation for all members who participated in the strikes.

In a statement on its website, the NSEU said it has engaged in unspecified disruptions on the company’s production lines to get management to eventually come to the negotiating table if the strikes continue.

“Management will eventually bend its knees and come to the negotiating table,” the statement said. “We are confident of our victory.”

The union did not say how many of its members would join the extended strike, but it earlier said that 6,540 of its members had said they would participate in the earlier, three-day strike.

Samsung Electronics has a total workforce estimated at 267,860 globally. About 120,000 of them are in South Korea.

Earlier this year, union members and management held rounds of talks on the NSEU’s demand for higher wages and better working conditions, but they failed to reach an agreement.

In June, some union members collectively used their annual leaves in a one-day walkout that observers said was the first strike at Samsung Electronics.

About 30,000 company workers are reportedly affiliated with the NSEU the largest at the company, and some belong to other, smaller unions.

In 2020, Samsung chief Lee Jae-yong, then vice-chairman of the company, said he would stop suppressing employee attempts to organise unions, as he expressed remorse over his alleged involvement in a massive 2016 corruption scandal that removed the country’s president from office.

The company’s union-busting practices had been criticised by activists for decades, though industrial actions at other businesses and in other sectors of society are common in South Korea.

Thousands of South Korean medical interns and residents have been on strike since February, protesting against a government plan to sharply increase medical school admissions.

The strikes come as Samsung recorded a profit of $7.5 billion (£5.84 bn) between April and June, up more than 900 per cent on last year.