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Samsung Electronics' wage talks with union break down

Published: 20 Feb. 2026, 17:20 Updated: 20 Feb. 2026, 18:04

Samsung Electronics' building in Seocho District, southern Seoul, is seen on Jan. 29. [NEWS1]

Samsung Electronics’ wage talks for this year, the first to take place with a joint bargaining group that includes the company’s first single majority union, have broken down. The group has sought intervention from the National Labor Relations Commission, the state labor dispute body.

The joint bargaining group, which includes the Samsung Electronics branch of the Samsung Group United Union (SGUU), said on Thursday that it had declared negotiations at an impasse after failing to narrow differences with management.

The group consists of the SGUU, the National Samsung Electronics Union and the Samsung Electronics Labor Union. It plans to begin procedures to secure the right to industrial action if it does not accept the outcome of mediation.

“It is difficult to make any more meaningful progress in the wage talks," said Woo Ha-kyung, the group’s chief negotiator.

At the center of the dispute is the calculation method for the company’s overperformance incentive system, or OPI.

The unions have demanded that the OPI trigger range remain fixed for three years, that performance exceeding 50 percent of the OPI be compensated at or above the level of competitors and that excess profit-sharing be split evenly between business divisions and individual business units.

Management proposed announcing the operating profit threshold for the OPI at the start of the year and providing guidance on projected operating profit by dividing the 0 to 50 percent range into 10 percentage point increments.

The company also suggested that if its Device Solutions division, which oversees its chip business, ranks first domestically based on internal management indicators, it would pay excess profit for every 1 trillion won ($700 million) in operating profit, with the full amount granted in shares.

Samsung Electronics said it would continue discussions with the unions. If mediation fails, the dispute could escalate into industrial action.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY PARK YOUNG-WOO [[email protected]]