Samsung Biologics labor and management will sit down at the bargaining table again on the 17th, two weeks after talks scheduled for the 3rd of this month were postponed. The union's second partial strike is still under way.
According to industry sources on the 13th, the two sides agreed to resume negotiations on the 17th. The company made the proposal to resume first, and the union accepted it. Labor and management have been at odds over wages and welfare benefits.
The union began its second partial strike on the 6th. The number of participants was initially 400 and has now grown to 500. The number of departments on strike has also increased every three days. From the 12th, seven departments, including the Test Method Technology Transfer Group and the Non-Routine Testing Group, joined. The scope of the strike appears to be widening in stages.
The second strike was triggered by the postponement of talks. Labor and management had originally planned to hold talks on the 3rd, but the company notified the union of a delay. The union responded by going on strike again. The union also staged a strike in May, the first full-scale strike since the company's founding. The company estimates that the strike halted some batch production and caused a loss of about 150 billion won.
The union has said it will continue the second strike for about three weeks, until the 27th. The talks on the 17th will take place ten days before the strike end date announced by the union. Attention is on how labor and management will handle the wage and welfare issues when talks resume two weeks after the postponement.