Samsung workers secure $400,000 bonus deal on AI profits
Global News Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 8.3K Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Unionised workers at Samsung Electronics in South Korea approve a landmark profit-sharing deal, putting them in line for bonuses averaging $400,000. The agreement with the world's largest memory chipmaker avoids a strike that had threatened the global supply chain. Workers had demanded a bigger slice of the tech giant's surging profits amid the AI boom.
Also: Israel says it has killed the new head of Hamas' military wing, just days after targeting his predecessor. In the US, Maga Republicans show their dominance of the party, after Ken Paxton beats John Cornyn in the Texas Senate primary. Spanish police raid the headquarters of the governing Socialist Party in a corruption probe. People in Iran have been able to go online to speak to family and friends outside the country, some for the first time in three months. Bolivia's Congress grants President Rodrigo Paz emergency powers to deploy troops amid widespread protests. Ghana begins repatriating around 800 of its citizens from South Africa amid hostility towards migrant workers. High cost of living and soaring sheep prices mean many cannot afford to take part in the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. And the Supreme Court in Italy rules that a hotel acted lawfully when it refused to give tap water to a tourist.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.6 | You're listening to the Global News Podcasts from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:10.9 | Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 15 hours GMT on Wednesday the 27th of May. |
| 0:17.6 | Workers at Samsung secure bonuses of nearly $400,000 have they set a precedent for sharing |
| 0:23.7 | out the spoils of AI. A four-term US senator loses the Texas primary as MAGA exerts its grip of |
| 0:31.6 | the Republican Party. And Spanish police have raided the headquarters of the governing socialist party. |
| 0:39.1 | Also in this podcast, the Garnayans fleeing racist threats in South Africa. |
| 0:44.0 | Their lives were in danger, the economic activity that they were engaging and had come to a standstill. |
| 0:48.8 | Who felt unwelcome in this country? |
| 0:51.0 | And? |
| 0:51.3 | She even offered to pay for it when this was refused saying that tap water should be just a |
| 0:57.4 | standard part of the hotel service and she likened it to finding a bed with sheets and soap in a |
| 1:03.4 | bathroom a judge in Italy rules that hotels can refuse to give out free tap water. |
| 1:16.9 | Should workers get to share in the profits of the AI boom? |
| 1:22.0 | Well, employees at Samsung certainly think so and threatened to go on strike to make it happen. |
| 1:28.4 | Now they've voted to accept a deal, which will see about two-thirds of them get an annual bonus, averaging nearly $400,000 this year. Samsung accounts for about an eighth of South Korea's GDP and there were |
| 1:35.2 | fears a strike could harm the economy. High demand for the firm's chips, which help power AI data |
| 1:41.2 | centres, boosted its first quarter operating profit by 750%. |
| 1:46.6 | But the pay deal has led to discontent in less profitable divisions of Samsung, |
| 1:51.9 | with a smaller union trying to block the agreement. |
| 1:54.8 | I heard more from our sole correspondent, Jake Kwan. |
| 1:57.7 | They have decided to set aside 10.5% of the operating profit every year as a bonus to be paid out in company stocks to the employees. |
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