Samsung wage vote deepens union rift

Voting on Samsung Electronics’ tentative 2026 wage agreement began Friday, but controversy surrounding the labor-management deal continued to deepen, with a dispute over voting eligibility raising the possibility of a legal clash between unions inside the company.

Two of Samsung Electronics’ three labor unions, the Samsung Electronics Companion Labor Union and the Suwon branch of the National Samsung Electronics Union, held a joint news conference outside the company’s Suwon campus on Friday, denouncing what they described as the exclusion of their members from the ratification vote by the industrywide union that holds bargaining authority.

The unions said employees in Samsung’s Device eXperience (DX) division would launch a campaign urging members to reject the tentative agreement.

The conflict erupted earlier Friday when the industrywide union informed the Companion Labor Union around 10 a.m., four hours before voting opened, that its members would not be eligible to participate. The union cited the Companion Labor Union’s withdrawal from the joint bargaining body on May 4. The Companion Labor Union accused the bargaining representative of changing course without warning.

“Until the previous day, we were receiving emails explaining voting procedures, only to be suddenly told we were excluded,” the union said. It argued that voting rights were revoked because the bargaining representative feared opposition from roughly 12,000 members angered by the tentative agreement.

Much of that discontent stems from perceived disparities in compensation between business divisions. While employees in Samsung’s Device Solutions (DS) memory chip division are expected to receive performance bonuses that could reach 600 million won per person, many workers in the DX division are likely to receive only 6 million won worth of company shares under a program promoted as a shared-growth initiative.

The compensation gap fueled a surge in union membership, with more than 10,000 employees joining the Companion Labor Union within a single day and rallying behind efforts to defeat the agreement.

The union warned it would pursue all available legal remedies, including filing a petition with the labor commission, if the voting exclusion is upheld. “If our voting rights are ultimately recognized, the ratification vote currently underway could be invalidated in its entirety,” union officials said. The industrywide union rejected that argument, maintaining that the voting process was procedurally sound.

Kim Yong-jun, a lawyer advising the industrywide union, said the Companion Labor Union lost its standing within the joint bargaining body after formally notifying the group on May 4 that it was ending its participation.

“The tentative agreement was reached on May 20, after that withdrawal took effect,” Kim said. “There is no legal basis for invalidating the vote because a union without bargaining authority was excluded.”

The industrywide union acknowledged that members of the Companion Labor Union were technically able to cast ballots in the electronic vote that began Friday, but said those votes would be treated as invalid when the results are finalized.

The vote will continue electronically through 10 a.m. on May 27. The agreement will pass if more than half of eligible members take part and a majority of participating voters approve the deal.


이동훈 dhlee@donga.com