Samsung Electronics to sign first collective agreement with union
Samsung Electronics headquarters in Seoul / Korea Times file
By Kim Hyun-bin
Samsung Electronics' management and union came to a milestone agreement this week, the first in the company's history.
According to the company and its union, Sunday, Samsung Electronics and the union representatives came to a consensus on signing a collective agreement on Thursday.
The location for the signing has not been decided, but the venue will be at the Samsung Electronics Giheung Campus in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, where previous negotiations between the two sides took place.
The first negotiations between management and union kicked off in November last year and around 30 sessions were held over the following nine months. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) established a joint negotiation team integrating four Samsung Electronics unions to engage in talks with management.
Late last month, the two sides came to a tentative agreement, with the union holding a vote on the matter. The largest Samsung Electronics union under the KCTU voted 96 percent in favor of the collective agreement.
A collective agreement is a written negotiated contract between employees of one or more trade unions that sets regulations and terms and conditions of employees at work, which includes wages, benefits and duties and responsibilities of employees.
The agreement, which consists of 95 clauses ― including conditions on the union such as securing an office and its activities ― is meant to deal with industrial accidents and enhancing the personnel management system.
There have been collective negotiations in the past between Samsung Electronics management and the union but Thursday's signing marks the first of its kind. In the coming weeks, the union is expected to conduct wage negotiations for 2021 utilizing the terms under the collective agreement.
In 2020, Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong declared the abolition of the company's no-union management policy, shifting the balance of power between workers and their employers.
Last month, Samsung Display signed a wage agreement with its union after union workers staged strikes for the first time in the company's history, which led to a 4.5 percent pay increase from the previous year. The strike was the first among Samsung affiliates.
On the flipside, the increased union activities increase the possibility of weakening Samsung's corporate competitiveness increases, as its anti-union management policy had helped it move forward with tasks while spending minimal time and money on employees, according to some industry officials.