AI时代人类第一场大规模罢工，来自造AI的工厂里

Original author: Sleepy

AI might be able to redefine the future, but it still cannot pay for the dignity that comes with labor.

On May 20th, wage negotiations between Samsung Electronics and the union nearly reached a breaking point. The union had originally planned to launch an 18-day strike starting May 21st. At the last moment, a provisional agreement was reached, putting the strike on hold for now, pending a vote by union members. However, the real issues haven't disappeared.

Strikes are not unfamiliar to us.

Those past events were equally heavy. Some happened in old industrial bases, some in the automotive supply chain, and some in export-oriented factories sustained by cheap manual labor. The common thread was always low wages and unpaid debts. Initially, people were taken for granted as durable consumables, slotted into plans under the banner of the "bigger picture." It wasn't until life became unbearably squeezed that people realized they hadn't yet degraded into metal parts, and so they straightened their backs within that cold order, making a human noise.

But this time is different.

This time, the workers stepping up are from Samsung Electronics.

They are not the workers with no retreat in the tide of globalization. They are the ones deepest inside the AI supply chain, closest to the "future." Within Samsung's vast conglomerate machinery, this giant that holds the world's semiconductor lifeline, its own workers have pressed the pause button.

A Strike Threatening Global AI

This strike is precisely choking the throat of the global AI industry chain.

Samsung and SK Hynix together produce roughly two-thirds of the world's memory chips.

Memory chips, while always important, were never considered a glamorous business. That changed with the arrival of AI, making it suddenly a fiercely contested battleground. Large model training, inference, and data center expansion require more than just GPUs; data needs to be fed in, stored, and retrieved at high speeds. This is where high-bandwidth memory like HBM becomes crucial.

According to KB Securities analyst Jeff Kim, an 18-day strike could disrupt 3% to 4% of global DRAM supply and 2% to 3% of NAND supply. While not apocalyptic, it's enough to tighten price expectations, customer production schedules, cloud vendor costs, and tech stock valuations.

The South Korean government is even more uneasy. Samsung is not an ordinary company; it's more like a manifestation of South Korea's national strength.

Yonhap News reported that semiconductor exports account for about 35% of South Korea's total exports. In Q1 2026, South Korea's exports hit a record high of $219.9 billion, with semiconductor exports surging 139% year-on-year to $78.5 billion.

Samsung itself accounts for about a quarter of the market capitalization of South Korea's KOSPI index. In other words, a tremor in Samsung's production lines doesn't just shake one company's profit statement; it shakes South Korea's exports, stock market, currency expectations, and the nation's confidence in its own story.

More critically, AI arrived too suddenly. In the past, South Korea's narrative of technological prowess centered on phones, displays, cars, home appliances, and semiconductors. Now, the global narrative has been reshuffled by large models, with the spotlight on OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, a cohort of Chinese AI companies, and computing giants like Nvidia. South Korea naturally wants its own sovereign AI, with the government promoting national-level AI infrastructure, and Nvidia announcing plans to deploy over 260,000 AI chips there. But South Korea knows that relying solely on models makes it difficult to wield overwhelming international influence caught between the US and China.

What it truly holds onto is the harder, heavier, less glamorous path: memory chips, HBM, DRAM, NAND, advanced manufacturing, and the underlying supply chain that feeds AI data centers. This is why Samsung is more important today than ever before.

The more AI advances, the more the world realizes that large models aren't magic floating in the cloud; they need electricity, GPUs, and memory. South Korea might not change the world with one model, but it can make sure the whole world's models can't bypass its chips.

The AI industry usually likes to talk about computing power, models, the games of giants, and who has outdone whom.

The Samsung strike abruptly pulls everyone back down from the clouds to the ground. No matter how high the computing power, it ultimately lands on factory floors, shifts, bonus formulas, and labor negotiations.

The future doesn't just float in the cloud. The future also needs to pay wages.

Why Are They Striking?

The union's core demands include:

A 7% increase in basic wages;

Allocating 15% of Samsung's annual operating profit to an employee bonus pool;

Abolishing the current bonus cap (around 50% of annual salary) and clearly defining how bonuses are calculated, when they are paid, and eligibility criteria.

Samsung disagrees. The company argues the union's demands are excessive, especially that extending high bonuses to loss-making divisions would break the "those who earn profits get bigger bonuses" principle.

Reports indicate a key point of contention in the final mediation was precisely the profit-sharing issue between different business units within the semiconductor division. The memory business is profitable, while other units are under pressure or even losing money. Should employees in loss-making divisions receive large bonuses too?

In modern large corporations, ordinary employees increasingly have less direct negotiation power over pay. Compensation is buried within a set of seemingly objective metrics: performance, coefficients, costs, cycles, business units, profit margins, and bonus caps.

Samsung's bonuses have long been tied to a complex formula. Korean media frequently mentions the term EVA (Economic Value Added). The gist is that profit must first deduct taxes, investments, and various capital costs before the remainder is considered for bonuses. The financial logic is sound, but it's hard for people to accept. Employees don't understand: if the company's profits are rising, why won't my bonus move? Am I failing in performance, or failing against this formula? Does my sweat count as a contribution in the company's eyes?

The reason Samsung employees' anger has only now erupted is because they have a mirror right next to them: SK Hynix.

SK Hynix secured a prime position in the AI memory sector, shining brightly in the HBM supply chain. More importantly, it knows how to translate this success into tangible numbers on employee pay stubs.

In September 2025, SK Hynix agreed on new rules with its union: for the next ten years, the company would allocate 10% of its operating profit annually to employees, abolishing the previous bonus cap.

According to JoongAng Ilbo at the time, under the new agreement, employees were expected to receive around 100 million KRW (approx. $76,000 USD / 550,000 RMB) each in bonuses for that year. By early 2026, The Seoul Economic Daily reported, based on the company's 2025 performance, that SK Hynix's approximately 34,500 employees would receive performance bonuses averaging 140 million KRW (approx. $106,000 USD / 630,000 RMB) each.

Even more striking, The Seoul Economic Daily, citing FnGuide forecasts, predicted SK Hynix's 2026 operating profit could reach 230 trillion KRW. 10% would be a 23 trillion KRW bonus pool. Simply divided by its 34,549 employees, that averages out to about 670 million KRW (approx. $508,000 USD / 3.04 million RMB) per person!

When the neighbor next door is already serving the meat from the pot, Samsung employees are naturally infuriated hearing the company preach about EVA, capital costs, and departmental differences.

Samsung's official financial report shows that in Q1 2026, the company's consolidated revenue reached 133.9 trillion KRW, a record quarterly high; operating profit reached 57.2 trillion KRW. The semiconductor division posted revenue of 81.7 trillion KRW and operating profit of 53.7 trillion KRW. The profits came primarily from AI-related demand, such as high-value AI memory, industry-wide memory price increases, HBM4, and AI data center expansion.

This is the crux of the awkwardness.

When the company is losing money, employees have little leverage. The boss tells everyone to endure, saying the cycle will turn. Employees might not be convinced internally, but seeing no profits on the books, they go along. But when the company becomes prosperous again and the fat is literally on the table, who picks up the chopsticks, who sits at the head of the table, and who just stands by smelling the aroma – these questions can no longer be smoothed over with sentimental appeals.

The Root of the Problem

To understand why Samsung employees are so angry today, you can't just look at one pay slip. You need to look back at the long-strained relationship between South Korea's chaebols and its workers.

South Korea's modernization process was more like a forced march led by the state. Large companies were pulled to the front, workers followed with their heads down. The car moved incredibly fast, but the allocation of seats was never decided through collective discussion.

Post-war South Korea was impoverished. Starting from the Park Chung-hee era, the state became the general dispatcher of industrialization, heavily supporting chaebols to win orders, build factories, and catch up technologically. Names like Samsung, Hyundai, and SK became the nation's face. They were predetermined as standard-bearers who *had* to succeed because South Korea needed that success. To achieve this, the state provided resources, banks provided loans, society provided endless patience, and the factory floor enforced ironclad discipline.

In this system, the role of the worker was clear: First, build the nation. First, make the company big. Endure for now. Wages can come later. Rights can come later. Unions can come later. Dignity can be compromised for now. Don't ask about the comfort of the seat before the car has even started moving.

1987 was a watershed moment. Cracks appeared in the monolithic order, and workers emerged from the factories through these cracks. Unions in large corporations began to take root. Workers were no longer willing to be just a vague backdrop in the grand narrative of the "economic miracle." They stepped forward, demanding wages, demanding safety, and demanding to be recognized as living creators, not worn-out parts discarded at the first sign of malfunction.

But Samsung was a long-standing exception. Samsung's "union-free management" was a deeply ingrained part of its corporate culture. In 2019, Samsung executives and employees were found to have intervened in and obstructed legitimate union activities in various ways, leading to the imprisonment of Samsung Electronics board chairman Lee Sang-hoon. In 2020, Lee Jae-yong publicly apologized and promised to abolish this old tradition within the Samsung Group, finally cracking the iron curtain.

So, this strike is not abrupt. It is preceded by post-war Korean industrialization, the old chaebol system, the labor movements following 1987, Samsung's long-standing anti-union tradition, and the belated apology in 2020.

The most painful aspect of the whole situation isn't just the money. It's that some capitalists are only willing to "share hardship" but not "share prosperity."

When the company is struggling, employees are often asked to act like a family. When the company is profitable, employees are reminded that this is a business. The first statement appeals to emotion, the second to policy. The problem is that people have feelings not only during hard times.

Writing this, it's no longer just a Korean story.

"Weathering the storm together," "reducing costs and increasing efficiency," "improving quality and efficiency," "embracing AI," "enhancing human productivity," "optimizing costs." These are phrases we are all too familiar with now.

This might be the most undignified aspect of the AI era.

We thought AI would liberate people from labor. Instead, it often means people must cooperate with AI to save the company money; people must learn AI to make their department more efficient; people must accept role reassignment, performance re-evaluation, and salary restructuring. As for the dividends, someone always tells you to wait, don't be impatient; the company still needs to invest, do R&D, withstand cycles, and maintain competitiveness.

These reasons might all be true. But the problem is, if they always push in one direction, they become a very polished excuse. Many companies in the real world operate this way: profits are earned collectively, but when it's time to discuss how to share them, you'd better not speak up.

Samsung workers are speaking up now.

But speaking up doesn't guarantee a win. The South Korean government might invoke emergency mediation. Courts have already restricted some union actions. Samsung has complex production and legal instruments at its disposal. A semiconductor fab is not a small workshop that can be shut down at will. A union cannot stop such a精密 system without incurring significant costs. The real world isn't a Hollywood story; workers don't win easily.

Snowpiercer

In Bong Joon-ho's *Snowpiercer*, humanity is confined to a train that cannot stop.

The front of the train is order, technology, the future. The back is crowded, silent, with a predetermined fate. The film's sharpest point isn't just the forced segregation of carriages, but that everyone accepts a fundamental premise: the train must never stop.

As long as the train must keep moving forward, where you suffer in which carriage, whether you eat cockroaches – it all becomes a "necessary cost" for maintaining the system. For the sake of that grand propulsion, individual living beings always seem expendable.

The Samsung strike is similarly trapped on a train that "cannot stop."

Wafers must not be damaged. Production lines must not halt. AI servers must not be kept waiting. South Korea's export data must not decline. Global tech companies don't want memory chip prices pushed higher either. Every reason is undeniably correct and forcefully argued. From the standpoint of the national economy, Samsung cannot stop. On the ledger of the global supply chain, Samsung cannot stop. In the unfinished AI race, Samsung absolutely cannot stop.

The more a machine is not allowed to stop, the more the people inside it are asked to endure.

Endure the production line. Endure the cycle. Endure the performance review. Endure the company strategy. Endure global competition. In the end, people find themselves constantly making way for something bigger: the enterprise, the industry, the future.

Ordinary people's lives seem very small next to these grand words, as small as a screw. But even a screw has its own metal fatigue.

What the Samsung union has done this time isn't about denying the benefits AI brings to the world, nor negating the semiconductor industry, nor saying technological progress isn't important.

It's not the old story of the poor rising against the rich, nor the petty story of highly-paid employees wanting a bigger bonus cut.

It actually hits upon the most unsettling proposition of the AI era: As technology becomes more advanced, does labor become more silenced? As machines grow more powerful, is the bargaining power of ordinary people destined to shrink? As growth becomes increasingly dazzling, does the certainty of our own lives weaken?

We love talking about the future. It's a convenient word. It's like a high-wattage spotlight, always illuminating the blueprints at product launches, the ambition in funding plans, and the fluctuating market capitalizations of companies. But the future can't only illuminate the engine. It needs to move towards the tail of the train as well, shining on the grueling night shifts, the employee ID badges, the resumes in the hands of graduates, and those people who are constantly told to "embrace change" but are shown the door when the fruits are being divided.

The Samsung strike might ultimately end with compromises, arbitration, partial concessions, or a new bonus formula. Labor negotiations often go like this: a grand, fiery start, eventually settling into percentages, a written agreement, and a few cautiously worded press releases. The news cycle will fade. Stock prices will continue to fluctuate. AI companies will release new models. Servers will consume more chips.

But some questions won't disappear along with the bargaining table.

The most pressing question for the AI era isn't just about computing power, model speed, or chip cost. We need to ponder more: can those who physically pull the "future" into reality eventually secure a certain life from that future?

This phrase may not sound grand enough. But what ordinary people want was never grand to begin with. Simply: work that has value, income that makes sense, a life with hope, and the assurance that when the times take a sharp turn, they won't be easily shaken off.

The future should, of course, move forward. But a train truly heading towards the future cannot have only its engine brightly lit.