Members of a minor union at Samsung Electronics answer questions from reporters before submitting a court injunction requesting a suspension of an ongoing vote on a wage deal in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday. Yonhap
A minority labor union at Samsung Electronics representing consumer electronics employees will continue its legal challenge against a recently reached wage agreement, the union's lawyer said Friday.
Earlier this week, the tech giant's two largest unions, representing more than 65,000 members, approved the agreement, which includes a substantial bonus package for chip employees amid booming earnings from artificial intelligence-related semiconductor business.
The smaller union, which has about 13,000 members primarily from the company's smartphone, TV and home appliance divisions, had initially filed for an injunction to suspend the vote on the wage deal.
However, after the vote concluded, the minority union said it will instead seek to block implementation of the agreement and plans to submit revised injunction documents to the court next week, the lawyer said.
The ruling is expected within a month.
Under the agreement, Samsung will provide a special semiconductor performance bonus equivalent to 10.5 percent of business performance earnings without a cap.
The bonuses will be paid in company stock over at least 10 years if the chip division achieves annual operating profit targets of more than 200 trillion won ($132 billion) from 2026 to 2028 and 100 trillion won from 2029 to 2035.
Based on forecasts that Samsung's annual operating profit could reach 300 trillion won, the agreement could result in bonus payouts of up to 600 million won for each of the company's 28,000 semiconductor employees.
In comparison, employees in Samsung's division that oversees smartphones and consumer electronics are expected to receive company stock worth around 6 million won.
Source: Korea Times News
