Workers in Samsung Electronics’ smartphone, television, and home appliance division plan to hold a rally over a major performance bonus gap with the company’s semiconductor employees.
The union representing workers in Samsung’s Device Experience division will stage the rally near the company’s Suwon campus on July 16, Reuters reported. Around 2,000 to 3,000 employees are expected to participate. The union has approximately 28,000 members.
Employees in Samsung’s non-chip divisions are expected to receive around 6 million won in company shares for 2026.
In comparison, workers in the Device Solutions semiconductor division could receive performance bonuses of up to 600 million won per person. This creates a potential 100-fold difference between employees working for different divisions of the same company.
A union representative said the rally would protest what workers consider the unfair exclusion of the DX division from this year’s wage agreement.
DX employees had already expressed their anger by wearing black clothing or black masks to work in June.
The protest took place at Samsung’s Suwon headquarters and other workplaces. Some union members also changed their internal profile messages to “Same company, same rights” and delayed signing their annual salary agreements.
The upcoming rally will mark a further escalation of the dispute.
Workers in Samsung’s semiconductor division had threatened to strike in May before their union reached a wage agreement with the company.
Under the deal, Samsung created a special performance bonus fund equal to 10.5% of the Device Solutions division’s operating performance. The arrangement applies specifically to employees in the semiconductor business.
The estimated 600 million won payout includes company shares and Samsung’s existing excess profit incentive. However, the final amount will depend on the semiconductor division’s performance.
The dispute comes as Samsung reports record earnings driven mainly by its semiconductor business.
Samsung estimated an operating profit of 89.4 trillion won, or around $58.4 billion, for the April-to-June quarter. This represents a 19-fold increase from the same period last year and marks the company’s third consecutive quarter of record operating profit.
The original analyst estimate cited by Reuters had placed Samsung’s quarterly operating profit at around 86 trillion won, compared with 4.7 trillion won during the second quarter of 2025.
Strong demand and higher prices for DRAM, high-bandwidth memory, and NAND chips have driven most of the increase.
Samsung will disclose further details about the performance of its individual divisions when it publishes its complete second-quarter financial report.
Get the latest tech news, telecom insights, and product launches wherever you prefer.
Add ProPakistani to Preferred Sources and see more of our stories in Google Search and Top Stories.
Shares
