[THE INVESTOR] A group of workers of Samsung Heavy Industries staged a sit-in protest on July 13 at Samsung Groups’s headquarters in downtown Seoul, demanding that the management’s restructuring drive be called off.

Their protest, the second of its kind in less than one month, came as the shipbuilder, one of the country’s big three shipyards, is seeking to launch a large-scale restructuring move in the face of a fall in new shipbuilding orders and worsening financial status.

Earlier, a majority of the “labor council” at the shipyard voted for a strike. Last week, they launched a four-hour strike in Geoje, South Gyeongsang Province. The company doesn’t allow a labor union.

The shipyard’s cost-saving measures include slashing some 1,500 jobs at the shipyard this year alone and selling noncore assets.

Samsung Heavy has been struggling to stay afloat amid financial troubles attributable to an industrywide crisis and fierce competition.

In early June, the Korea Development Bank accepted Samsung’s self-restructuring plan, giving it some time to try to ride out the crisis on its own.


(theinvestor@heraldcorp.com)