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Samsung Electronics' labor union under fire for allegedly pressuring members to join strike

Published: 08 Mar. 2026, 18:02

The logo of Samsung Electronics is seen at the company's store in Seoul on April 15, 2025. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

Samsung Electronics' labor union has come under fire for allegedly pressuring members to back a strike by implying that they would be disadvantaged if they did not participate in the planned action.

Samsung Electronics' joint union headquarters plans to hold a vote — open to all union members — on whether to strike, according to industry sources on Sunday. The voting period starts on Monday and runs through March 18.

If more than half of the voters favor the strike, the union will hold a rally on April 23 before launching a general strike from May 21 to June 7.

The joint union headquarters represents about 89,000 members.

Choi Seung-ho, the head of the Samsung Group Supercorporate Labor Union's Samsung Electronics branch, encouraged members to participate in the strike during a YouTube livestream on Thursday.

“The leadership will hold rallies near our Pyeongtaek office during the strike and recruit staff to watch over offices at company sites,” Choi said. “We will keep a list of names of employees who work during the strike and refer to it when dealing with transfers or layoffs.”

The union is also considering rewarding workers who report coworkers who continue working during the strike.

Members of the Samsung labor union call for improvements to the bonus system during a press conference in front of Samsung Electronics’ office in Seocho District, southern Seoul, on Sept. 30, 2025. [NEWS1]

“For the union, what matters is that members stand together,” Choi said. “The company is trying to create division among employees, so we wanted to make clear that we will protect union members.”

Some employees criticized Choi's remarks for pressuring workers to join the strike.

“If I join the strike, the company could penalize me,” an employee, who works as a manager in a division for which job transfers occur frequently, said. “But the union says it will keep a list of those who refuse to join, so I feel stuck.”

Another employee, on the other hand, supported the union’s approach.

“Many people feel that if we miss this chance, there may not be another one,” the employee said. “I understand why the union wants to build support and show that most workers back the strike.”

If union members vote for a strike, this will mark the second strike faced by Samsung Electronics since its founding. The company experienced its first in July 2024, when the National Samsung Electronics Union led a walkout.

Approximately 50,000 union members work in the company’s Device Solutions division, which handles the semiconductor business. Industry sources warn that a strike could disrupt production of semiconductors, including high bandwidth memory, or HBM.

Samsung Electronics' GDDR7, a next-generation graphics dynamic random-access memory, or DRAM, optimized for gaming and AI workloads, is on display during the 2025 Korea Tech Festival in southern Seoul on Dec. 4, 2025. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

Disagreements over the bonus system lie at the center of the labor dispute for the latest plan.

The union lowered its demand for a base pay increase to 5 percent but asked the company to make the overall performance incentive (OPI) bonus system — a performance-based bonus tied to company profits — clearer and remove the cap on bonuses.

The company proposed calculating the OPI bonus in one of two ways: using 20 percent of the company's value after costs and taxes or 10 percent of operating profit.

But the company argued that the proposal was hard to accept, as removing the cap could be unfair to divisions that have more difficulty meeting performance targets.

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 LEE YOUNG-KEUN [[email protected]]