Samsung's union buys a Times Square billboard to fight AI job cuts

A Samsung Electronics labour union representing workers in the smartphone and home-appliance divisions began running a 15-second advertisement on a Times Square billboard at midnight on 5 September 2026, opposing workforce reductions driven by the company's AI push. The ad plays hourly at 35 minutes past and carries the messages 'Great products begin with people' and 'We are still here' in both English and Korean. The Donghaeng union, concentrated in Samsung's Device eXperience division, is also protesting a widening pay gap with the semiconductor side of the business, and plans rallies of around 200 people near executive chairman Lee Jae-yong's Yongsan residence from 18 September. Almost every AI-displacement story is told by the employer - a filing, an earnings call, a CEO letter. This is one of the first told by the workers, and they bought space in Manhattan to tell it. Organised labour treating AI-driven cuts as a bargaining issue rather than an inevitability is the shape the next phase of this takes.