Samsung consumer electronics staff to rally over Semiconductor workers' wage deal

Workers in Samsung Electronics' television and home appliances division are set to stage a rally on July 16, protesting what they describe as a widening gap in bonuses between employees in the company's semiconductor business and those in its non-chip divisions.

The protest follows a recent wage agreement secured by Samsung's semiconductor division through negotiations led by a separate union. Under the deal, workers in the non-chip divisions are expected to receive KRW 6 million worth of treasury shares in 2026, compared with up to KRW 600 million for employees in the semiconductor division, according to local reports.

Around 2,000 to 3,000 workers are expected to participate in the rally near Samsung's headquarters in Suwon, Yonhap reported, citing the company's largest labour union representing employees in its mobile and consumer electronics business. The union reportedly has around 28,000 members.

The demonstration comes just ahead of Samsung's second-quarter earnings announcement on Tuesday, when the company is expected to report an 18-fold year-on-year increase in operating profit for the April–June quarter.

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Previous protests

The latest demonstration follows a series of labour protests earlier this year, when Samsung's chip manufacturing union demanded that the company abolish the cap limiting performance bonuses to 50 percent of annual salaries. The union also called for 15 percent of Samsung's annual operating profit to be allocated to a bonus pool distributed among employees and urged the company to make the revised compensation structure permanent beyond this year.

Transcripts from previous negotiations revealed that some employees at rival SK Hynix could receive bonuses worth as much as 607 percent of their annual salary. Samsung's union argued that the company's memory chip workers should receive performance bonuses that exceed those offered by its competitor.

At the time, Samsung had proposed bonuses equivalent to 50–100 percent of annual salaries for staff in its logic chip business. The discussions came as memory chip makers enjoyed record profits driven by the artificial intelligence boom and a global shortage of high-performance memory chips. Samsung and SK Hynix together account for the majority of the world's memory chip production.

The earlier strikes caused significant disruption to Samsung's operations, prompting South Korean government officials to warn that the labour action could affect one of the country's most important export industries. The semiconductor sector accounts for nearly a quarter of South Korea's total exports, underscoring the broader economic impact of prolonged industrial action.