Samsung Biologics union members lose up to 1.5 million won a month — while leadership quietly pursues living-expense payouts

The fighting spirit of the Samsung Biologics labor union is rapidly eroding, and internal fractures have reached a critical point. Unlike the Samsung Electronics union, which secured a wage deal before resorting to a strike, the Samsung Biologics union has already burned through its first-ever strike action with little to show for it — leaving leadership with no further leverage to pressure management.

Particularly damaging is the leadership's insistence on demands that go far beyond wages, including a say in personnel decisions and outsourcing approvals. With negotiations effectively deadlocked, rank-and-file members are increasingly gripped by fears of pay cuts and job insecurity, and backlash against the leadership is growing out of control.

After more than a month of work-to-rule, participating union members saw monthly pay fall by 1 million to 1.5 million won (about $987). The financial cost of the labor action has become an immediate reality. As payday approached, inquiries about the scale of pay reductions flooded in from employees who had taken part in the action, and Samsung Biologics proactively notified staff through its payroll system so they could review their individual pay stubs in advance.

Those who participated in the strike and work-to-rule action will receive this month's wages with basic pay docked in proportion to hours on strike under the no-work, no-pay principle, and with all overtime, night-shift and holiday allowances they refused during the work-to-rule period stripped out entirely. Because the biopharmaceutical production process runs around the clock and shift and overtime premiums make up a large share of total compensation, affected employees are estimated to have taken pay cuts of up to 1.5 million won this month, though the exact amount varies by individual.

The mood on anonymous workplace forums has turned icy. One union member said they had known the no-work, no-pay rule applied but had not expected the deductions to be this steep for just a few days on strike. "Ninety-thousand won gone just from the strike attendance record, and without the usual overtime and weekend shifts, I'm looking at about 1.2 million won less before tax compared with last month," the member wrote, sharing specific figures. Distrust of the leadership's unilateral approach to the dispute is spreading rapidly, particularly among younger employees feeling the immediate hit to their livelihoods.

Management-rights demands have pushed talks to a standstill — and members are asking: "Do they think we're Samsung Electronics?" The leadership's refusal to drop demands that personnel and management authority be written into the collective agreement — well beyond the scope of wage talks — is also fueling internal division. "It's like the union has decided to take the company down with it," one employee wrote. "Stop chasing management rights that will never be agreed to and just wrap up the wage and working-conditions talks." Others voiced desperation over the prospect of losing their jobs, citing falling share prices and disruptions to order pipelines. "I worked hard to build my resume and get hired here," one wrote. "I don't want to lose this job."

Critics say the backlash stems from the leadership's misjudgment in trying to import a confrontational playbook from Samsung Electronics and other manufacturers onto a contract development and manufacturing organization, or CDMO, whose business model depends entirely on client trust. "Why flip over a table that's been serving us well every year just to squeeze out a few hundred thousand or a few million more?" another employee wrote. "We don't have some unique technology edge — we win contracts because our salespeople hustle, and we get paid with client money. Are we really going to gut the goose that lays the golden eggs?"

Hidden inside the push to go independent is a "living-expense" clause for union executives. While members have been anxious about pay cuts and the risk to the company's order book, internal anger has boiled over after it emerged that the union leadership had been quietly engineering rule changes to protect its own interests. In the process of pursuing withdrawal from the industry-wide union federation and establishing an independent union, the leadership proposed amendments to the union charter that would strip the delegate assembly and general membership of financial oversight powers while concentrating authority in the hands of the executive.

The leadership announced it would hold a general assembly over three days beginning June 16 through June 18 to vote on withdrawing from the federation. But when the substance of the hidden charter amendments became known, members expressed a deep sense of betrayal.

The centerpiece of the amendments, Article 21 on job security for union officers, goes beyond the standard provision of legal fees and fines to allow the executive committee — acting on its own judgment alone — to pay "living expenses" to union officers, effectively monopolizing that spending authority. In other words, while members take pay cuts that bite into their livelihoods, the leadership has carved out a channel to draw on union dues for its own living expenses without any legitimate mandate. The amendments also add a new clause under Article 28 on accounting — a provision for a "strike fund and emergency fiscal measures" — that would transfer authority to build large-scale funds from the delegate assembly to the executive committee, a body critics say functions as little more than a rubber stamp for a small group of officers.

A labor industry official said using the high-profile cause of federation withdrawal as a vehicle to concentrate opaque financial power is "a textbook case of rolling back union democracy," adding that pursuing these amendments "will not only trigger fierce internal backlash but will seriously damage the leadership's moral standing and credibility going forward."

Amid pressure from within and without, Samsung Biologics management and the union are expected to return to the wage and collective bargaining table this week, ending more than a month of going around in circles.

By Choi Eun-ji