SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Unionized workers at Samsung Electronics declared an indefinite strike Wednesday to pressure South Korea’s biggest company to accept their calls for higher pays and other benefits.

Thousands of members of the National Samsung Electronics Union launched a temporary, three-day strike on Monday.

However, in a statement posted on its website, the union said it has engaged in unspecified disruptions on the company’s production lines to get management to eventually come to the negotiating table if the strikes continue.

In June, some union members collectively used their annual leaves in a one-day walkout that observers said was the first labor strike at Samsung Electronics.

In 2020, Samsung chief Lee Jae-yong, then vice chairman of the company, said he would stop suppressing employee attempts to organize unions, as he expressed remorse over his alleged involvement in a massive 2016 corruption scandal that removed the country’s president from office.

The company’s union-busting practices had been criticized by activists for decades, though labor actions at other businesses and in other sectors of the society are common in South Korea.

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