Samsung Electronics labor and management signed a tentative agreement in a dramatic turn about 1 hour and 30 minutes before the start of a general strike. Although the strike risk will be fully resolved only after a vote by union members, the semiconductor industry says, "The worst-case scenario has been averted for now." Attention is also growing on Choi Seung-ho, Chairperson of the Samsung Group Supra-enterprise Labor Union's Samsung Electronics chapter, who drove the company to the brink of the largest general strike since its founding.
Summing up comments from multiple Samsung Electronics employees on the 22nd, Choi was not hard-line enough to insist on pushing ahead with a strike despite worsening public opinion and government mediation from the outset. In Apr. 2023, he even appeared in a Samsung Electronics semiconductor newsroom promotional video, and he was close to a rank-and-file employee with strong affection for the company who performed his duties in an ordinary way. A Samsung Electronics DS (semiconductors) employee who worked with Choi directly or indirectly at the time said, "He did seem relatively sensitive about compensation issues, but there were no problems in his interpersonal relationships or work," adding, "He was an exemplary colleague who looked out for those around him and steadily pursued self-development."
In that video, Choi explained, "I work on systems in Foundry (contract semiconductor manufacturing) S5 production." He helped ensure that wafers were made into chips on schedule and to quality standards. He also said he developed and operated automated systems to ensure that semiconductors contracted for production by clients would come out at consistent quality, and he handled training for rank-and-file employees. This employee became the majority union Chairperson who, in three years, drove Samsung Electronics to the brink of a general strike.
◇ "Consistently raised issues on the in-house board… joined the union over a company that would not change"
Choi began focusing in earnest on union activity after taking the post of publicity director of the supra-enterprise union in Jul. 2024. He had also belonged to the National Samsung Electronics Labor Union (Jeonsamno) in 2021, but his scope of activity was reportedly not as large as it is now.
After serving about a year as publicity director in the supra-enterprise union, Choi ran in Nov. last year to become the 2nd-term Chairperson. At the time, he specified his affiliation as DS institutional sector, Memory Business, Pyeongtaek Campus, Fab 3 (P3). In his candidate self-introduction, he wrote, "I started posting on the in-house board out of a desire for employees to have a better work life," adding, "Beyond simply writing posts, I came to meet various people and request improvements on unreasonable aspects."
Born in 1991, Choi, as publicity director of the supra-enterprise union, filed a class-action suit against the company seeking to include fixed overtime pay, individual pensions, and holiday travel expenses in base pay. His pledges included excluding political leanings, securing the status of employee representative, bargaining tailored to each institutional sector, transparency in union operations, and establishing a foundation for the labor union. This direction is seen as having influenced member recruitment. An industry source said, "Millennials and Gen Z feel aversion to overly politicized unions and react sensitively to personal compensation," adding, "Choi likely understood this well and crafted his pledges accordingly."
◇ Fatigue with Jeonsamno, distrust of executives, inferior compensation versus competitors
As of Sept. last year, the supra-enterprise union had only about 6,000 members. But last month it rapidly expanded to 75,000. After Choi became the union head, it achieved majority-union status. This is why there is internal assessment at Samsung Electronics that "Employees were able to unite because Choi did his part." Although numbers have dipped as DX (finished goods) employees have increasingly left recently, the membership still remains above 70,000.
However, the prevailing view is that the supra-enterprise union's growth is due more to external factors than to Choi's individual capabilities. After Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong declared an end to no-union management in 2020, unions sprang up across the Samsung Group. Several unions formed at Samsung Electronics, and among them, Jeonsamno, which had 35,000 members, led bargaining with management as the largest union.
In the 2025 wage and collective agreement talks, Jeonsamno displayed various problems such as a "backroom deal" to set a higher performance raise for the standing executive committee through a separate agreement with management and a "lack of internal communication." As trust in Jeonsamno among employees fell, the supra-enterprise union, centered on Choi, capitalized on it and succeeded in attracting members. In Oct. last year, the supra-enterprise union overtook Jeonsamno to secure the largest-union status.
Relative deprivation stemming from the compensation gap with SK hynix poured fuel on this trend. When the competitor paid an unusually large performance bonus last year, dissatisfaction surged among members of Millennials and Gen Z who prioritize practical compensation. Naturally, interest grew in the supra-enterprise union that had positioned itself as an alternative to Jeonsamno inside the company, and Choi organized employee grievances into language such as ▲making performance-bonus formulas transparent ▲abolishing performance-bonus caps ▲preventing the outflow of science and engineering talent.
Dissatisfaction over the compensation gap between executives and employees is also cited as a backdrop to the rise of the supra-enterprise union. During the semiconductor downturn in 2023, the DS institutional sector posted an annual loss of 14.88 trillion won, and the 2023 excess profit incentive (OPI) paid in early 2024 was set at 0%. According to the 2023 Samsung Electronics business report, senior advisor Kim Ki-nam, who served as head of the DS institutional sector, received 17.265 billion won in remuneration, and Kyung Kye-hyun, then head of the DS institutional sector, also received 2.403 billion won. This became a catalyst for the perception that "When times are tough, only employees share the pain, and executives take the performance and compensation first."
Choi's slogans of institutionalizing, making transparent, and abolishing caps on performance bonuses could thus be framed as raising the issue that Samsung Electronics' internal compensation system no longer earns the trust of its members. At a large rally in Pyeongtaek on the 23rd of last month, Choi said, "The (majority union) was not created because we did well; it is the result of the company not responding to employees' complaints."
◇ A challenge to Samsung Electronics' "performance-based pay"… public criticism over the overall process of winning concessions
Leveraging its majority-union status, the supra-enterprise union pressured Samsung Electronics to the brink of a general strike and drew out a tentative agreement on 2026 wages and performance bonuses. The tentative deal keeps the existing OPI while creating a DS institutional sector special management performance bonus. The DS special management performance bonus will be distributed 40% at the institutional sector level and 60% at the business unit level. This means that even loss-making business units such as Foundry and System LSI will receive larger rewards than before.
However, Choi caused many problems in the process of winning this, drawing public outrage. Internally, many employees say they "feel betrayed" by Choi, who had advocated "horizontal communication" and "a union that encompasses all business units."
In a YouTube live broadcast in March, Choi said, "If there are those who work for the company, we will manage a list and, when forced transfers or dismissals that require consultation with the union arise later, we will notify them first." He was browbeating colleagues to magnify the strike's impact. On the 18th, he posted in a union chat room, "Once (the current situation) is resolved, let's consider splitting the union," and "To be honest, I can't stand DX," then deleted the post.
The industry interprets Choi's rise not as an individual outburst but as a result of Samsung Electronics' internal compensation system. As Millennials and Gen Z directly challenged the performance-based and top-down organizational culture, the figure of Choi came to the fore.
However, public condemnation continues over the fact that, without considering overall public sentiment or the social fallout of the strike, he stuck to a hard-line stance focused only on "his own interests." A Samsung Electronics employee familiar with the union's internal affairs said, "The inexperienced Chairperson Choi and the law firm that colluded with him to, under the pretext of advice, sharpen the conflict with management both contributed to turning the supra-enterprise union into a 'public enemy,'" adding, "Management, which has consistently ignored the demands of Millennials and Gen Z employees, and the union, which lost its cause by failing to see the forest for the trees, both need to reflect."