Members of Samsung Electronics' largest union, the Samsung Group Super Enterprise Labor Union Samsung Electronics Branch (hereinafter the super enterprise union), filed a petition with the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) claiming the union leadership resolved to strike while ignoring procedures and even made threatening remarks toward those who did not participate.
According to industry sources on the 19th, some members of the super enterprise union recently submitted a petition to the ministry requesting corrective orders and administrative guidance, saying there were illegal acts by the union during the ongoing bargaining with management and in the strike procedure.
The petitioners also argued that a remark by Super Enterprise Union Chairperson Choi Seung-ho that those who do not cooperate with the strike could be made priority targets in the event management pursues reassignment or dismissal constitutes a violation of the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act and amounts to coercion under the Criminal Act.
Chairperson Choi Seung-ho said on YouTube in March, "If there are people working for the company, we will manage a list and, in the event of forced reassignment or dismissal that requires consultation with the union later, we will guide them first."
The petitioners further pointed out that although the union explained that a request to change the agenda item on the distribution ratio of performance bonuses by institutional sector was impossible because it had been finalized through a member survey, the relevant question was not actually included in the survey.
They also said the union arbitrarily set the distribution ratio for DS, the semiconductor institutional sector, and coordinated it with management while completely blocking the submission of an agenda item for DX, the finished goods institutional sector.
The general meeting that resolved the strike and amendments to the union bylaws was also announced only three days in advance, ignoring the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act and bylaws that mandate a seven-day notice. The petitioners argued that a newly established bylaw allowing the Chairperson to act as auditor in the absence of an accounting auditor violates the independence and oversight purpose of accounting audits specified in the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act.
They also viewed a newly established bylaw delegating the decision on union dues to the union steering committee—under which dues were raised fivefold during the labor dispute period—as contrary to the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act, which designates the decision on dues as a matter exclusively for resolution by the general meeting.
The petitioners said, "The union's current conduct is nothing but a dictatorship that undermines the union's essential values of solidarity and democracy and thoroughly suppresses minority institutional sectors under the guise of majority rule," adding, "If a strike is pushed ahead with such fatal illegality, irreversible labor-management conflict and mass layoffs, among other severe social repercussions, are foreseen."
Earlier, they filed for an injunction to suspend the effectiveness of the union's bargaining demands and to prohibit subsequent procedures such as collective bargaining. On the 20th, ahead of a hearing at the Suwon District Court, they plan to hold a press conference and urge that bargaining demands reflecting members' opinions sufficiently be prepared again.