A tentative agreement on 2026 wages and bonuses prepared by labor and management at Samsung Electronics has passed a union membership vote.
The joint bargaining team of the Samsung Electronics labor union announced on the 27th that the tentative agreement on the 2026 wage pact passed in a vote. Of the 65,593 eligible union members, 62,616 cast ballots, for a turnout of 95.5%. Among them, 46,142 voted in favor and 16,474 opposed. The overall approval rate was 73.7%.
The vote, which began at 2 p.m. on the 22nd and continued until 10 a.m. on the day, was held among members of the Samsung Electronics branch of the Samsung Group supra-enterprise labor union (supra-enterprise union) and the National Samsung Electronics Labor Union. The two unions remained on the joint bargaining team at the time of the tentative agreement and were the parties that reached the tentative 2026 wage pact with management.
Of the 57,332 eligible members of the supra-enterprise union, 55,333 voted, recording a 96.5% turnout. There were 44,606 votes in favor and 10,727 against, for an approval rate of 80.6%. By contrast, at the National Samsung Electronics Labor Union, 7,283 of 8,261 eligible members voted, with 1,536 in favor and 5,747 against, for an approval rate of 21.1%.
The labor-management wage agreement that passed the membership vote includes a base raise of 4.1% and an average performance-based raise of 2.1%. The performance-based raise is applied differentially by career level (CL) and evaluation grade. It also includes increases to childbirth congratulatory and condolence payments, a higher salary cap, and improvements to compensation for designated work and designated days off under variable shifts.
The core of the bonus agreement is to maintain the existing Over-Profit Incentive (OPI) while creating a special management performance bonus for the DS (semiconductor) division. The funding pool for the DS division's special management performance bonus is set at 10.5% of business performance selected by labor and management through agreement. This bonus is paid entirely in company stock after taxes.
The DS division's special management performance bonus will be paid if the DS division achieves 200 trillion won in operating profit from this year through 2028, and if it achieves 100 trillion won in operating profit annually from 2029 through 2035. The allocation ratio of the pool is 40% to the division and 60% to the business unit. The payout rate for common organizations is set at 70% of the payout rate for the Memory Business Unit.
By contrast, the DX (finished goods) division, which handles smartphones, TVs and home appliances, and the Customer Service (CSS) Business Team will receive company stock worth 6 million won. Because of this, there has been backlash, centered on DX division employees, that the bonus gap with the DS division is excessive.
Samsung Electronics Labor Union Donghaeng (Donghaeng Union), a union centered on DX division employees, filed for an injunction the previous day with the Suwon District Court to halt the voting procedure on the tentative agreement. The Donghaeng Union says the vote was held while it was excluded from the joint bargaining team and that the views of DX division members were not sufficiently reflected. The supra-enterprise union says the Donghaeng Union withdrew from the joint bargaining team before the tentative agreement and therefore is not subject to the vote. The court set the hearing date for the Donghaeng Union's injunction request for the 29th.
With the tentative labor-management agreement on wages and bonuses at Samsung Electronics finalized, the risk of a general strike by the union has been fully resolved. However, internal conflict driven by differing interests among Samsung Electronics divisions is expected to continue. Observers say the gap in approval rates by union reflects this mood within the company.