Although labor and management at Samsung Electronics dramatically reached a tentative wage agreement just before a general strike, there is still a sense that embers of conflict remain inside the company.
Ahead of a vote on the tentative agreement set to begin at 2 p.m. on the 22nd, expectations are leaning toward approval, but many inside the company are said to be calling for rejection. In the industry, analysts said the situation has revealed not only a wage bargaining issue but also changes in Samsung Electronics' internal business structure and a weakening of organizational cohesion.
Inside Samsung Electronics, differences between the DS (semiconductors) and DX (finished goods) divisions are pronounced. In particular, the tentative agreement creates a separate special management performance bonus scheme for DS, while DX keeps the existing cap structure, which is said to be fueling a strong sense of relative deprivation.
This current is escalating into in-house "labor-labor conflict." The largest industrywide union initially formed a joint bargaining group with unions centered on DX, such as the Donghaeng union, to secure majority status, but the Donghaeng union, opposing DS-centered demands during talks, exited the bargaining group.
Angered by this, DX members began leaving the industrywide union in large numbers, shaking the union's majority. Ultimately, the industrywide union, which holds exclusive bargaining rights, abruptly notified the Donghaeng union ahead of the vote that "having withdrawn from the bargaining group, you have no voting rights," triggering an explosion of conflict. Among DX division members, a surge of anger erupted: "We were used just to give them the majority union title, and in the end we were discarded without even voting rights."
Even within DS, a mood gap was detected between the memory business unit and the foundry and system LSI units. The memory unit, buoyed by expectations from the HBM (high-bandwidth memory) boom, showed many positive reactions to expanding bonuses, while the non-memory units suffering continued losses expressed feelings of relative neglect.
In fact, inside the company, concrete calculations circulated that even among 10-year colleagues, bonus gaps would widen by hundreds of millions of won depending on their business unit—memory (an estimated 300 million won after tax), Semiconductor Research Center (an estimated 200 million won after tax), and foundry and LSI (an estimated 100 million won after tax). Members lamented, "Overnight, colleagues have all been split apart," and "It was actually happier in 2023 when we all got 0 won."
In particular, among highly educated researchers in the foundry or non-memory divisions who were assigned to departments regardless of their preference after joining, a sense of self-reproach over reversed compensation is spreading, with comments such as, "We were 'sold' from another unit and, because ours is a loss-making unit, we get less than a quarter," and "I have a Ph.D. in foundry, but when I see a memory production worker getting twice as much as I do, I get angry and then just resign myself."
DX division members have also continued to voice complaints that "in the past, smartphones and appliances sustained Samsung Electronics during semiconductor slumps, but now the compensation structure leans excessively toward DS." Posts arguing for rejecting the tentative agreement are reportedly continuing on internal communities and within the company mood.
However, inside and outside the industry, the prevailing view is that the vote is more likely to pass. Analysts said fatigue from a prolonged general strike is high, and it would be burdensome to overturn an agreement painstakingly reached after government mediation.
The problem is that even if this vote passes, internal conflicts at Samsung Electronics will not be easily resolved. Industry voices note that in the AI era, the semiconductor business has grown rapidly in stature, shifting Samsung Electronics' internal power structure and the balance of interests themselves.
In the past, during memory semiconductor slumps, Samsung Electronics continued large-scale facility investments using cash generated by smartphones and appliances. Recently, however, as DS has overwhelmingly increased its contribution to results centered on HBM, evaluations say the compensation system is also moving strongly toward restructuring around business unit performance.
In this process, talk of spinning off DS is resurfacing inside and outside the business world. In the past, the possibility of a DS spinoff arose during memory booms, but it did not materialize due to synergy with DX and the need to respond to economic cycles. Recently, however, analysis has emerged that the temperature gap between business units has widened to the point where even insiders say it is "virtually operating like a separate company."
A business community official said, "While a general strike was averted for now, this situation revealed that internal fissures at Samsung Electronics are deeper than expected," adding, "Amid changes in the business structure in the AI era, the key task will be how to rebuild internal cohesion."