Officials from a shareholder activist group hold a press conference calling for the withdrawal of the planned strike in Yongsan District, Seoul, Tuesday. Yonhap
Concerns are rising within the labor sector that a planned strike by Samsung Electronics’ unions, now six days away, could deepen Korea's labor market polarization, as its demands mark a sharp break from conventional labor-management negotiations.
The Samsung Electronics union coalition is set to begin a general strike on May 21, as tensions escalate over efforts to institutionalize the company’s bonus system.
The union is calling for a legally binding guarantee to allocate 15 percent of operating profit to performance-based bonuses, along with the removal of the current cap on payouts — demands that management has rejected.
However, the unions’ focus on performance-based bonuses marks a sharp break from past labor negotiations, where such incentives have rarely been a core bargaining issue.
“Disputes over the allocation of performance bonuses are uncommon in established labor-management practices,” said Choi Young-ki, a professor of business administration at Hallym University.
He said that the scale of the proposed profit-sharing is also unusual, noting that wage negotiations and strikes have traditionally focused on base pay and working conditions, with performance bonuses not strictly treated as compensation for labor.
“While some portion can be considered labor compensation, demanding a share of company profits simply because the firm performed well is rarely seen in past labor negotiations,” he said.
Choi also warned that the growing push to make performance-based bonuses a central bargaining issue — and a potential trigger for strikes — among unions at major conglomerates could signal a new phase in Korea’s labor-management relations.
“Given the current state of Korea’s labor market, where polarization is already severe, this carries the risk of pushing that divide to even greater extremes,” he said.
Source: Korea Times News
