2026 Samsung Electronics Salary Negotiations: Key Points on Performance Bonuses and Union Demands

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[mdtoday = Park Seong-ha, Reporter] With one day remaining before the second post-adjustment meeting on the wage agreement, Samsung Electronics and its union have entered a final bargaining phase over whether to institutionalize the performance-bonus system. The government said it could consider measures, including emergency mediation, if a Samsung strike threatens serious harm to the national economy.

Prime Minister Kim Min-seok told the nation at the Government Complex in Seoul on May 17 that, should a Samsung strike create conditions that inflict severe damage on the national economy, the government would have no choice but to employ every tool at its disposal. If emergency mediation is invoked, the union must halt its strike immediately, and strikes would be prohibited for 30 days.

Once emergency mediation begins, the Central Labor Relations Commission will immediately take charge of the process. If the commission determines mediation is unlikely to succeed, it can move to compulsory arbitration; the commission’s arbitration ruling carries the force of a collective bargaining agreement. Union leaders and others who defy an emergency order by continuing to strike or refusing to return to work would face legal penalties.

Management and the union remain divided over the bonus fund, payout criteria, and whether to formalize the performance-bonus system. The union is demanding the elimination of the 50% bonus cap and the institutionalization of a bonus equivalent to 15% of annual operating profit. The company says full institutionalization is difficult to accept but has proposed formalizing payouts through a special-award mechanism.

In the first post-adjustment round, the union proposed allocating 13% of operating profit as cash bonuses and 2% as stock bonuses. It also asked to shorten the period for removing the bonus cap from 10 years to five. The Central Labor Relations Commission has drafted an adjustment proposal that would set the bonus benchmark at 12% of operating profit.

The company partially accommodated the union’s demands and replaced chief negotiator Kim Hyeong-ro with Vice President Yeo Myung-gu. Under the mediation of the Central Labor Relations Commission, the parties will continue wage talks on the 18th.

Choi Seung-ho, head of the Samsung Electronics branch of the superunion, declined to state a separate position on emergency mediation but said the union would participate in the post-adjustment process in good faith to pursue labor-management harmony. Chairman Lee Jae-yong, in a public apology the day before, likewise emphasized unity and urged employees and the union to pull together in the same direction.

By publicly raising the prospect of emergency mediation, the government has increased pressure on the union to modify its demands, making that decision a central variable in the talks. If the two sides narrow their differences over bonus institutionalization, the risk of a general strike falls; if talks collapse, labor tensions could spread again.

Lee Jae-yong also made a direct appeal for unity amid the dispute. In his apology, he told the union and employees, “We are one body, one family,” and said the time has come to wisely join forces and move together.

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