Samsung chair imprisoned and 24 others found guilty in union-busting case

I'll bite. My father worked there from early 70s to late 90s.

Samsung dynasty is famous for being anti-union. That anti-union stance is deeply embedded in the company DNA. Union busting activities have been going on since day 1.

The Samsung founder once said, "Union over my dead body". Throughout its 50 year history, the company managed to operate without any official Union representation.

And if you spend time there long enough like my father, that DNA gets slowly worked into you, just like the current execs being tossed into jail.

A few years after my father left Samsung, he ended up as a chief exec at a pharma company for 10 years. For an older generation guy, he is extremely left-leaning and progressive. Except his disdain for unionizing. He would talk painfully about dealing with union leaders at company plant.

Some of that is probably attributable to his Samsung days.

This is a big message being sent to Samsung management culture from SK government who has turned blind eye to its union busting practice for 50 years.

[It got long. I just thought I'd share an experience]

I worked in the company for sometime. Was visiting from their subsidiary in my country for some time. There was a young lady just outside the mobility HQ main gate camped every day speaking something on the loudspeaker. I didn't understand anything except that she was speaking in a very passionate voice and it seemed a bit broken too, a little pleading. No one would go near her or talk to her or take her pamphlets. Not the employees, not a TV crew, nor reporters and she was there everyday till afternoon from morning. I also noticed some photos there, among which some were in a factory worker's uniform (jacket, head protection etc). Though I could guess but I wasn't sure.

One day I walked up to her. She thanked me and told me in her broken English that her husband had died in a factory accident and the company was not owning it. What I understood was "they are not even talking to me". She had all the pamphlets in Korean, only one piece of paper in English which she gave to me and I was going through it. It would have been 1-2 minutes max and three guards basically swooped down upon me and pretty much pulled me aside while shouting at me that what I was doing was illegal and that couldn't talk to her in their broken English. They took the photo of my ID Card and told me "this is warning" and left me alone right there. By the day end I had received a call from my manager who asked me to refrain from getting into it. It was lunch break so when I went back to my office people were looking at my suspiciously. I was just out of college. It was a scary experience.

When the guards were pulling me away the lady was the only person protesting and none of other employees pretty much even looked at me. When I asked a Korean colleague in office that afternoon why everybody is looking at me like this and why no one talking to me suddenly he didn't say anything and remained silent and then softly "we only talk work, no personal". I guess people get conditioned. Even I didn't talk to her again. But I used to nod and smile at her and she always used to smile back.

I left the company after few months. No, I wouldn't say that was the reason. It's strange but I just can't bring myself to buy a company product till today. If someone asks me for a gadget recommendation and I find something decent in their catalog I do recommend that but I personally have not been able to get one myself since then. This incident stayed with me and whenever I think of the company somehow that woman's image flashes in front of me.