<body><p>STORY: :: April, 2026</p><p>Samsung Electronics' union said it would suspend a strike set to begin on Thursday after the two sides reached a tentative pay deal.</p><p>The agreement potentially averts action that threatened to disrupt the production of AI and other chips.</p><p>Nearly 48,000 workers planned to strike for 18 days but will now vote on a new contract instead.</p><p>Samsung Electronics said in a separate statement that the two parties had reached a tentative agreement on wages and collective bargaining and pledged to "build mature and constructive labor-management relations."</p><p>The 11th hour deal came after days of talks that broke down multiple times, including earlier on Wednesday when the union announced that it would go ahead with the strike.</p><p>The two sides had been at odds over how performance bonuses would be distributed between the conglomerate's hugely profitable memory business and loss-making logic chip businesses, Reuters has previously reported.</p><p>The union said this issue was resolved.</p><p>Samsung accounts for almost a quarter of South Korea's exports and is also the world's largest memory chipmaker.</p><p>Disruptions of its production would risk fueling price rises at a time when the AI boom has caused shortages.</p></body>
