Samsung Electronics, union resume wage talks as major strike nears

Samsung Electronics and its largest labor union resumed government-led wage mediation talks Monday in a last-ditch effort to avert a strike at the world's largest memory chipmaker. The talks restarted days after the first round of government-mediated negotiations collapsed over performance-based bonuses, ahead of an 18-day strike scheduled to begin Thursday. "We will participate in this second round in good faith," Choi Seung-ho, head of Samsung Electronics' largest labor union, told reporters at the National Labor Relations Commission office in Sejong, about 110 kilometers south of Seoul. "(Negotiations) will be carried out through tomorrow," Park Soo-keun, chairman of the committee, said, noting that both sides are expected to present their proposals in the afternoon. Labor and management remained sharply divided over performance-based bonuses tied to earnings from the company's artificial intelligence (AI)-related semiconductor business amid the ongoing memory supercycle. Management has proposed maintaining the current excess profit incentive system while allowing the bonus pool to be