Talks between Samsung Electronics and its largest labor union have broken down, with only eight days left before the launch of an 18-day general strike scheduled for May 21. This walkout threatens to bring operations at the world’s largest memory chip factory to a standstill, prompting South Korea’s Prime Minister to order vigilant oversight of the unfolding situation. The union has made it clear that no further negotiations will take place prior to the strike, though it remains open to reviewing any fresh proposals put forward by Samsung, which, for its part, has pledged to maintain dialogue. Industry analysts warn that an 18-day full-blown strike could have severe repercussions, with production recovery potentially stretching out to 36 days. Products such as high-performance server DRAM and enterprise-grade SSDs are anticipated to bear the brunt of the impact. Loss estimates vary widely across different sources: JPMorgan projects that the 18-day work stoppage could inflict direct revenue losses exceeding KRW 4 trillion on Samsung, a professor from Seoul National University estimates daily losses of roughly KRW 1 trillion due to halted production, and the union itself puts the total losses at up to KRW 30 trillion.