SEOUL, KOREA - The employees of Samsung Corning Precision Materials are asking for a total of 2 trillion won in severance pay, or 500 million won for each employee.

 

Earlier Samsung Group decided to sell off its stake in Samsung Corning to Corning Inc. of the United States on conditions that the latter retain the current workforce with the same level of pay and benefit packages.

 

 

But Samsung Corning employees and the newly organized union demand that the company compensate for the loss of prestige of working for Samsung. In previous cases of merger such as SK Group's takeover of Hynix and Lotte Group's acquisition of Hi-Mart, the severance pay levels remained at 5-10 million won.

 

Shin Young-shik, union representative for Samsung Corning who submitted a labor union organization application with the Ministry of Employment and Labor on November 14, said, "We have worked for years for Samsung but will be denied that privilege from next year. The company must compensate for that loss for all employees. We came up with the figure for compensation based on the company's retained earnings of 6 trillion won and this year's expected net profit of 1.5 trillion won." Kim Ki-hwan, head of the emergency response committee, also said, "Samsung must pay compensation commesurate with its brand value."

 

On October 23, Samsung Group announced that it would hand over its 42.45-percent stake in Samsung Corning Precision Materials to Corning in exchange for preferred stock (equivalent to a 7.4-percent stake). Once the deal is closed at the end of January next year, Samsung Corning will become a company 100 percent owned by the American glass maker.