As the Samsung Electronics labor union has announced a general strike, internal conflict within the union is spreading. Dissatisfaction is growing that the union's bonus demand considered only semiconductor institutional sector members, and there is a surge in withdrawals by union members belonging to non-semiconductor institutional sectors.
According to the industry on the 3rd, withdrawal applications have recently increased on the website of the supra-enterprise union Samsung Electronics chapter. Withdrawal applications, which were usually fewer than 100 per day, surpassed 500 on the 28th of last month and are said to have exceeded 1,000 on the 29th. As posts certifying withdrawals spread across in-house bulletin boards and office worker communities, this trend is continuing.
Withdrawing members say the supra-enterprise union is making decisions centered on the Device Solutions (DS) institutional sector, which handles the semiconductor business, and is not reflecting the demands of members in other institutional sectors.
The supra-enterprise union is the only majority union within Samsung Electronics, and employees in the DS institutional sector, who account for about 80% of its members, are said to be leading this strike. The union is demanding that the DS institutional sector receive performance bonuses equal to 15% of operating profit with no cap, but it has not presented separate demands for the relatively underperforming Device eXperience (DX) institutional sector.
The DX institutional sector, which is in charge of finished goods (set) businesses, saw first-quarter operating profit fall 36% year over year due to the impact of semiconductor price hikes by the DS institutional sector under the same Samsung Electronics, and there is even talk of a full-year deficit.
If the union's demands are reflected, DS institutional sector executives and employees could receive up to about 600 million won per person in bonuses this year, while the DX institutional sector could be forced to shoulder business restructuring burdens amid difficulty paying bonuses. Samsung Electronics' refusal to accept the demand to abolish the bonus cap is interpreted as taking into account internal organizational conflict caused by such compensation gaps.
Meanwhile, regarding Foundry and System LSI, deficit businesses within the DS institutional sector, the union is demanding equal treatment as part of the DS institutional sector. In response, there is analysis within the DX institutional sector that, to maintain majority status and push ahead with the strike, the union is seeking only DS institutional sector solidarity while excluding the relatively smaller DX institutional sector.
Controversy also arose when the union moved to recruit staff by saying it would pay 3 million won for at least 15 days of strike participation. In response, members are again taking issue with the January decision to raise union dues from 10,000 won to 50,000 won per month, citing the establishment of a fund to guarantee status related to the right to strike. The reaction is that, while not reflecting DX institutional sector demands, members are being asked to cover leadership expenses and staff allowances with union dues.
As union-versus-union conflict intensifies, observers say a weakening of the union's representativeness and the strike's justification is inevitable. However, since those belonging to DX account for only about 20% of the 74,000-plus members of the supra-enterprise union, the likelihood that the union will push ahead with the strike still appears high.