THE year-long heroic struggle of the Samsung workers at the Sriperumbudur plant on the outskirts of Chennai culminated in a significant victory on May 19, 2025, with the signing of an agreement with the notoriously anti-union Samsung management. This marks a landmark event in the history of contemporary trade union struggles in India.

Samsung, the South Korean electronics giant and the country's largest chaebol – a family-owned conglomerate – operates in 75 countries and is infamous for its strict ‘no-union’ policy. This anti-worker, anti-democratic policy was decisively challenged and broken by the determined struggle of the Samsung India workers, led by the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) at Sriperumbudur.

The recognition of the union stands out as the most crucial achievement of this struggle. While the agreement includes a substantial wage increase,  ranging from Rs 18,000 to Rs 23,000 over three years along with additional benefits such as special promotions, enhanced incentives, and increased leave entitlements, the core demands were the right to form a trade union and its formal recognition by the management as the collective bargaining entity. These have now been successfully secured.

The path to this victory, however, was arduous. The workers endured an intense confrontation between labour and capital, involving not just corporate resistance but also State apparatus.

It is important to recall that after the formation and consolidation of the union at Samsung’s Seoul plant in 2021, a historic moment occurred on June 16, 2024, when nearly 30,000 workers with the National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) staged the first-ever recorded strike in Samsung’s 87-year history. On that very same day, workers at Samsung India Electronics Private Limited in Sriperumbudur gathered in Kanchipuram and held a general body meeting. Despite earlier failed attempts to form a union, this time they succeeded, officially launching the Samsung India Thozhilar Sangam (Samsung India Workers Union – SIWU).

On the very next day, June 27, 2024, the union – Samsung India Workers Union (SIWU) –submitted its list of duly elected office-bearers, chosen in the general body meeting, to the Samsung management. In the meantime, the office-bearers refined the workers’ demands and prepared a formal charter of demands, which was then submitted to the management with a request for a prompt resolution.

True to its character, the Samsung management responded with a series of unfair labour practices instead of engaging in meaningful dialogue. Management personnel, accompanied by hired goons, visited workers’ homes to ‘persuade’ them to disassociate from the union, even threatening them with termination if they refused. When that failed, Samsung officials began calling workers individually after every shift, pressuring them to resign from the union. The management also declared it would never engage with any ‘outsider’, stating such individuals would not be allowed inside the plant.

Further, the management summoned – rather, paraded – the workers for a so-called ‘meeting’. All 1,550 workers who had joined SIWU boycotted the meeting. In a blatant attempt to undermine the union, the company formed a management-backed “workmen’s committee” and coerced workers to sign documents indicating they had joined this puppet body. Despite the intimidation, the workers remained steadfast and refused to give in.

In a shocking escalation, the management even hijacked and confined an office-bearer of SIWU. Yet the workers stood their ground and vowed to defend the union against these criminal attempts to destabilise it.

In this grave situation, SIWU issued a strike notice on August 19, 2024. This act was met with death threats from goons hired by Samsung. When union leaders sought police protection, they were instead detained at the police station – highlighting the nexus between corporate power and state machinery.

Workers now faced a double assault: on one side, the ruthless anti-union tactics of the management, and on the other, the complicit actions of the government machinery – from the police to the revenue department – all deployed in service of the corporation. In such a hostile environment, the working class was left with no choice but to resort to the ultimate weapon of direct action: a strike to halt production. This indefinite strike began on 9th September 9, 2024.

After a month-long strike, on October 15, 2024, a four-member Group of Ministers from the Tamil Nadu state government intervened and both parties agreed to an ‘agreed advice’ formulated by the state labour department. Since the union registration issue was pending before the Madras High Court, the Tamil Nadu government promised to abide by the court’s decision. Regarding the charter of demands, the management agreed to provide a written response to the designated conciliation officer and to follow due legal processes for resolution. It was also agreed that no worker would be penalised for participating in the strike.

Following this, the 38-day-long indefinite strike was called off on October 16, 2024, based on a unanimous resolution passed in a special general body meeting.

On the morning of January 17, workers returned to the factory hopeful of resuming duty. However, normal work did not resume. Instead, all 1,500-odd workers were divided into ten groups of 150 each and subjected to a week-long “training” or “reorientation” programme. These sessions, far from being educational, turned out to be coercive, intimidating, and discriminatory in nature – a clear attempt at brainwashing.

To further divide the workforce, the Samsung management offered added benefits to those willing to join the company-backed puppet union, exploiting the economic vulnerability of the workers. In contrast, SIWU members were denied incentives and leave entitlements. Even women workers were not spared – they were harassed by being reassigned to physically demanding tasks.

Meanwhile, the Madras High Court ordered the registration of the Samsung India Workers Union (SIWU), and after a 38-day strike, prolonged victimisation, and a 212-day legal battle, SIWU was officially registered on January 27, 2025. This was a remarkable achievement, especially in the context of intensifying neoliberal efforts across the country to create union-free workplaces.

However, this victory triggered another wave of management retaliation and intensified resistance by workers under SIWU’s leadership. On February 5, 2025, during the lunch break, workers marched en masse to meet the managing director, who refused to engage with them. In response, workers launched a sit-in protest inside the factory that lasted 11 days, until February 16. Management responded by closing the toilets to force workers to relent, but the protestors stood firm. Police were prevented from entering the premises due to fears of damaging the production line and the highly charged atmosphere – workers were prepared to embrace the machinery itself if a lathi-charge was ordered.

In a further escalation, Samsung brought in approximately 2,500 loading workers to break the strike. CITU appealed to the Factory Inspectorate to take action against this illegal deployment, but no steps were taken. Coercion intensified, with workers being pressured to resign from SIWU and join the puppet "workmen’s committee."

To sustain the movement, SIWU shifted the protest outside the factory. However, the district administration refused to grant any space for assembly or agitation. Undeterred, workers set up a makeshift shed on CPI(M)-owned land, 25 kilometres from the factory, and continued the struggle from February 17 to  March 6, 2025. During this period, the management, with renewed aggression, forced every individual worker to sign a Section 18(1) settlement clandestinely reached between the company and members of the minority-backed “workmen’s committee.” These settlements, offering minor benefits, were meant to break the morale of the agitating workers – but they held their ground, demanding that management negotiate directly with SIWU to resolve their legitimate demands.

On March 7, workers marched to the factory gate, demanding to be allowed inside to work. Management allowed them back in phases, a process that continued until May 9. In the meantime, 25 union office-bearers were suspended. Yet the struggle persisted, with more than 20 conciliation proceedings taking place during this period.

Finally, on May 19, 2025, a formal agreement was signed in the presence of the Tamil Nadu state labour minister. The agreement included wage hikes and addressed other key issues. Both Samsung management and SIWU leaders, including CITU state president A Soundararajan and state secretary E Muthukumar, signed the agreement. The union was now not only registered but formally recognised as the legitimate collective bargaining entity.

These are the inalienable rights of workers – won through the heroic and unwavering struggle of Samsung workers at the Sriperumbudur plant in Kanchipuram district. Their fight stands as a landmark in the ongoing battle for workers’ rights in neoliberal India.