Samsung to invest $117 million in southern Indian facility, minister says

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics will make investments 10 billion rupees ($117.09 million) in its facility in southern India, a minister mentioned on Friday, months after the plant confronted employee protests following worker suspensions. The plant close to Chennai has been within the highlight in current months after employees staged a sit-in over worker suspensions in February – the second main labour dispute there in beneath six months.

In September final 12 months, a whole lot of employees went on a five-week strike on the plant, looking for increased wages and union recognition earlier than the electronics producer agreed to handle employees’ calls for. The corporate’s extra funding “reinforces their religion within the labour power of Tamil Nadu state,” T. R. B. Rajaa, the state’s minister for industries, funding promotion and commerce, mentioned on social media platform X, including that Samsung would add 100 extra jobs to the ability.

The employees’ union is at loggerheads with Samsung, accusing the corporate of union-busting ways. Samsung, nevertheless, has maintained it’s “compliant with all relevant legal guidelines.”

It presently employs greater than 2,000 folks. Samsung didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. The minister didn’t give a timeframe for the funding.

The manufacturing unit makes fridges, televisions and washing machines, and accounted for a fifth of Samsung’s $12 billion India gross sales in 2022-23.