ANALYSIS Why Samsung labor unions’ strike plan means more than corporate dispute for Korea

Members of Samsung Electronics' labor unions stage a rally at the company's plant in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, April 23, urging the company to remove a cap on performance-based bonuses and improve transparency in the metrics used to calculate incentives. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

By Nam Hyun-woo

• Published Apr 30, 2026 11:34 AM KST
• Updated May 3, 2026 2:14 PM KST

Union demand for high bonuses based on record-high profits fails to draw public support

The global tech industry is paying close attention to Samsung Electronics labor unions’ threat to launch a strike on May 21 unless the company removes a cap on performance-based bonuses.

Beyond the potential losses that the strike could inflict on Samsung — estimated at around 1 trillion won ($680 million) a day — and possible disruptions in the memory chip supply chain worldwide, the threat poses a broader test for Korea: It raises questions over how exceptional corporate gains should be shared, what precedent the dispute could leave behind and how public sentiment and political interests may shape that outcome.

Another point making this strike threat notable is the limited support it has drawn. Even considering that the union leading the dispute among the company's five unions — Samsung Electronics Labor Union (SELU) — is not affiliated with either of Korea’s two umbrella labor groups, politicians and civic groups have largely refrained from voicing solidarity. Even the labor-friendly Lee Jae Myung administration has signaled opposition to the potential strike, indicating the issue at Samsung is not being seen as a usual labor-management dispute.

How to share profit with employees

Samsung Electronics’ first-ever strike came in 2024, when a massive loss at its chipmaking Device Solutions (DS) division in 2023 led to the absence of performance bonuses and eventually escalated into a walkout.

The situation is the opposite this time. Riding a global memory supercycle, Samsung Electronics posted a sharp earnings recovery in the second half of last year, and logged a whopping 57.2 trillion won in operating profit for the first quarter of this year alone, becoming the world’s fourth-most-profitable company.

The current dispute centers on how these high profits should be shared with employees. The unions are demanding the removal of the cap on performance-based bonuses and allocations equal to 15 percent of annual operating profit. The company is refusing, arguing such measures would undermine its future sustainability.

It is widely believed that the unions' demand reflects the case of SK hynix, Samsung’s main rival in memory chips, which has also enjoyed extraordinary gains from the chip upcycle.

In September, SK hynix’s labor unions and management agreed to remove the cap on performance-based bonuses and allocate 10 percent of operating profit to such payouts over the next 10 years.

Under the agreement, it is estimated that each SK hynix worker could receive around 700 million won this year alone. This large bonus estimation is viewed among Samsung union members as widening the compensation gap with employees at the rival company, even though the operations at Samsung's DS division memory business and SK hynix are similar.

Comparisons with its rivals can be observed repeatedly in the minutes of negotiations between Samsung’s unions and management. According to the minutes of their first bargaining session on Dec. 16, 2025, the unions argued that “without changes to the bonus payout formula, performance bonuses in 2026 could be one-eighth of those at competitors,” and “lifting the cap is necessary to bring payouts to a comparable level with rivals.”

An employee at the DS Division said on condition of anonymity it is no secret that several younger staff members are forming study groups as they prepare to move to SK hynix, attracted by what they see as a clearer compensation system.

“The wage gap with SK hynix is expected to widen further, while the company (Samsung Electronics) seems to be demanding more and more from employees. Isn’t raising wages also an investment in people?” he said.

Before SK hynix reached its wage deal last September, SELU was a minor union among Samsung’s five unions, with about 6,000 members. It grew explosively by centering its campaign on narrowing the performance bonus gap with SK hynix, and recently became Samsung’s majority union with about 74,000 members, winning legal recognition as the representative union for its workers.

Industry officials said that when SK hynix struck its bonus deal, not many expected the potential labor-management friction at Samsung to be as serious as now. But as profits at both memory makers swelled to extraordinary levels, the sums that could be allocated to unions also surged, ultimately triggering a broader debate over whether payouts of that scale are justified.

“When SK hynix reached the bonus agreement, it was widely viewed as rewards to employees and efforts to attract new recruits,” an industry official said on condition of anonymity.

“But as both SK hynix and Samsung Electronics began posting enormous operating profits, the sums unions could potentially receive grew exceptionally large. As the amounts swelled, the issue seems to have expanded into a debate over whether such payouts could come at the expense of companies’ future investment.”

Given that Samsung is expected to post 300 trillion won in operating profit this year, the unions’ 15 percent bonus demand is equivalent to 45 trillion won. The amount is higher than the company’s 2025 research and development spending of 37 trillion won and last year’s shareholder dividends of 11 trillion won.

It is also more than 4.5 times the 9.4 trillion won that Samsung paid to take over Harman International, which is the largest-ever acquisition deal the company has signed.

Lonely campaign

As those figures drew attention, the unions’ demands also began attracting broad public interest, mostly in a negative sense.

Not only conservative but also several liberal media outlets, which more frequently support laborers, expressed skepticism about the unions’ demands, questioning whether the payouts would serve the company’s long-term interests and noting that employees at Samsung’s subcontractors would not share in such benefits.

Public sentiment flared quickly over the news that SK hynix employees could receive bonuses worth 700 million won and that Samsung’s strike threat was tied to a demand for as much as 45 trillion won in bonuses. Online reactions ranged from criticism to self-deprecating remarks, with comments such as, “I chose the wrong industry if I earn less than a production worker at SK hynix,” and “I must have planned my life the wrong way.”

Far-fetched claims have also surfaced. A series of recent posts on Blind, an anonymous workplace forum, argue that the outsized gains of large conglomerates, many of which benefited from state support, should be shared more broadly with the public. Some even called for the chipmakers to pay incentives in local currency vouchers to boost local consumption.

Workers in other industries say such far-fetched arguments are surfacing because they reflect a deep sense of relative deprivation.

“Samsung and SK hynix employees may have played their part, but they also benefited from favorable industry conditions, so they have to ask themselves whether they are demanding too much in incentives,” said a Yeouido-based office worker in her 40s surnamed Kang.

“I believe corporate profits are generated not by labor alone but through a combination of long-term investment and technological development. The workers have to ask whether today’s profits belong to them alone. And if profits are to be shared, it is fair to ask whether workers would shoulder possible losses as well.”

Negative responses emerged even from the Lee government, which has often been labeled as “pro-labor.”

The president himself expressed concerns over the planned strike. “If some organized workers pursue only their own interests with excessive and unjustified demands and draw public criticism, it could harm not only their own unions but also other workers,” he said Thursday in a meeting with senior presidential officials.

While there was no explicit mention of Samsung, Lee's message was widely interpreted as referring to the company's unions. “We must move beyond a 'looking out only for myself' mindset and have a mindset of responsibility and solidarity to make a society where all workers and citizens can thrive together.”

Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan also added to the negative sentiment.

“Samsung Electronics’ achievements are the result of infrastructure, numerous partner companies, more than 4 million retail shareholders and the National Pension Service, which holds about a 7.8 percent stake in the company,” he said in an April 27 press briefing. “We need to consider whether profits generated today should be shared only among members inside the company.”

Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon also told broadcaster KBS on April 26, “Samsung Electronics’ achievements today were built not only by workers ... The workers should also consider the national economy and the interests of partner companies.”

In a Tuesday statement, the union slammed the media for framing “our struggle as individual selfishness.” It questioned why workers’ legitimate demands for compensation should be branded as a “national economic crisis” or as “spoiled demands by a privileged union.”

The Samsung union leader suggested that president's unusual criticism was aimed at the LG Uplus union, whose workers are demanding a 30 percent bonus.

The assertion immediately drew backlash from LG Uplus, which called for an official apology for what it denounced as “a cowardly act." The protest led the SELU leader to apologize in a media interview on Saturday.

Killing golden goose

Experts say Korea has lacked sufficient discussion over how to share profits when companies encounter a supercycle of this scale.

“This labor-management conflict is not simply about money, but a test of how one of Korea’s leading companies can build governance of trust in a changed labor environment,” said Kim Dae-jong, an economics professor at Sejong University. “A prolonged strike could inflict irreversible damage, so a balance must be found between expanding performance bonuses and maintaining the cap.”

Rather than maintaining the bonus cap unconditionally, Kim stressed that companies should introduce greater flexibility by diversifying the structure of performance bonuses or expanding long-term performance incentives, so that employees are encouraged to contribute to long-term value creation.

He also said the unions’ demand for greater transparency in compensation standards is justifiable, and that Samsung’s management should also make efforts to link payouts to intuitive and credible metrics that employees can easily understand and trust.

“So the most important thing in the current debate is that a company should determine the right balance in sharing profits while keeping its future in mind,” another industry official said. “Otherwise, it could end up like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.”