[iNews24 reporters Kwon Seo-ah and Park Ji-eun] With a union vote on Samsung Electronics’ tentative labor-management agreement scheduled to run from the 22nd, more than 9,000 employees in the Device Experience (DX) division joined a union on the 21st alone.
Industry sources say DX employees dissatisfied with the tentative agreement appear to have mobilized to vote against it.
The Donghaeng Union actively informed new members that anyone who joined by 2 p.m. that day would be eligible to vote.
A DX employee in his 30s said, “It’s not that we’re unhappy about receiving 6,000,000 KRW (about $4,500); we’re upset that DX-specific items that had been part of the bargaining agenda were removed.”
Some DX employees posted on internal bulletin boards that practical items—reducing unpaid overtime, long-service leave, and PaNet points—were removed, and that DX and CSS issues have effectively vanished from the bargaining table.
The Samsung Electronics third union, the Samsung Electronics Donghaeng Union, reported 11,172 members as of 2 p.m. that day. The union had roughly 2,260 members in March, meaning its ranks have nearly quintupled since the tentative agreement was announced.
Membership in the second union, the National Samsung Electronics Labor Union (JeonSamNo), has also begun to rise again. It stood at 15,266 members on the 15th, dipped to 15,123 as of 9 a.m. on the 19th, and then climbed to 16,286 as of 1 p.m. on the 21st around the time of the tentative agreement announcement.
By contrast, the cross-company union’s Samsung Electronics branch, which had been the majority union, has been declining recently.
Its membership surged from about 6,500 in September last year to 75,000 as of April 15 this year, and reached roughly 76,000 at the general-strike rally on the 23rd of last month. Since then it fell to 70,985 as of 3 p.m. on the 20th and to 70,850 as of 2 p.m. on the 21st.
A Donghaeng Union official said, “I see this as a natural outcome. The DS division receives compensation even though it is a chronically loss-making unit, while DX—despite running a surplus—operates under the same standards. That leaves DX employees feeling marginalized.”
Samsung Electronics’ unions will hold a yes-or-no vote on the tentative agreement from the 22nd through the 27th.
Members of the cross-company union must pay union dues at least once after joining to obtain voting rights. By contrast, Donghaeng and JeonSamNo reportedly allow new members to vote immediately after joining without any dues-payment requirement.
As opposition grew, Choi Seung-ho, chair of the cross-company union’s Samsung Electronics branch, posted a separate statement that day.
Choi said, “I’ve received both support and complaints from members in LSI, foundry, shared organizations, and memory. I wanted to increase resources to bring everyone along as much as possible, but I regret that I couldn’t satisfy everyone.”
He added, “I don’t want to give up on the cross-company union, and I want to achieve better results with our members. There will be parts you can’t accept, but I hope you’ll stand with us.”
Meanwhile, the Donghaeng Union sent an official letter to the company that day, requesting a formal meeting with No Tae-moon, acting head of the DX division, and arguing that the company urgently needs measures to address the DX division’s exclusion from the 2026 wage negotiations.
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