Internal conflict! Nhân viên bộ phận chip của Samsung xin lệnh cấm của tòa án vì "phân chia thưởng không công bằng": Từ chối làm công dân thứ hai

Samsung Electronics, primarily through the DX Digital Experience division's small union, officially filed for an injunction with the Korean court, requesting to suspend the upcoming vote on the preliminary salary agreement, citing that employees in the chip division will receive an average bonus of up to 513 million Korean won, while DX Digital Experience division employees will only get 6 million Korean won, a gap of over 85 times.
（Background summary: Financial Times: China "bans Nvidia RTX 5090D V2" gaming chip imports, Huang Renxun's visit to China ends with a backstab）
（Additional background: Goldman Sachs CEO Solomon: AI "job apocalypse" is an exaggerated panic）

The internal wage battle at Samsung Electronics has heated up rapidly on the eve of the voting deadline for the agreement. According to Bloomberg, the smallest union, mainly representing DX Digital Experience division employees, filed for an injunction with the Korean court on Tuesday, demanding to suspend the final vote scheduled for this Wednesday (May 27).

The union's core demand is only one: This agreement is too skewed in favor of chip employees and unfair to the consumer electronics division.

Based on the proposed terms and the projected Samsung operating profit for 2026, the average bonus for semiconductor division employees this year is approximately 513 million Korean won (about 340,000 USD); meanwhile, the figure for DX division employees is only 6 million Korean won, a gap of over 85 times.

The smallest union was disqualified from voting after leaving

It is understood that Samsung Electronics has three unions in total. The largest union, mainly representing the semiconductor division, led salary negotiations for several months and reached a preliminary agreement on May 20, successfully averting a strike that could have affected 48,000 employees.

The agreement includes an average 6.2% salary adjustment, a housing loan plan up to 500 million Korean won, and an annual bonus of about 40 trillion Korean won (approximately 26.6 billion USD) for 78,000 semiconductor division employees.

However, the smallest union had already withdrawn from the joint negotiation committee during the negotiations, citing that the demands of DX division employees were not sufficiently addressed. Subsequently, the largest union claimed that once they had left the committee, members of the smallest union were no longer eligible to vote, further intensifying the conflict.

The stance of the smallest union is clear: this is not an agreement representing all employees, but a tailored deal for the chip division. Filing for an injunction with the court is the only way to prevent the agreement from passing before the vote results are finalized.

DX union members surged by 10,000 in a single day

Before the preliminary agreement was signed, the DX union had about 3,000 members; but by Tuesday morning, the number had risen to nearly 13,000, a net increase of over 10,000 in one day. Bloomberg reports that some union members actively called on colleagues to join, with the explicit goal of ensuring these members qualify to vote in the final ballot, thereby increasing the chances of rejecting the agreement.

However, whether this surge in members can translate into actual voting rights still depends on whether the court accepts the injunction application and whether the largest union recognizes the voting eligibility of these new members.

As of Monday night, 87% of eligible members had completed voting, and the agreement only requires a simple majority to pass. Analysts generally expect the agreement to be approved in the end.