'Same company, same rights': Samsung Electronics' consumer division workers rally over bonus gap

About 5,000 employees from Samsung Electronics' consumer and mobile division, known as the DX division, staged a mass rally Thursday to protest a bonus settlement they say falls far short of what their colleagues in the semiconductor division received. The Samsung Electronics Donghang union — the company's second-largest — urged management to scrap the 2026 wage negotiations entirely and provide each DX employee with 1,000 treasury shares as compensation.

Around 3,500 union members dressed in black gathered outside Samsung Electronics' Suwon campus at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, holding placards reading "Same company, same rights" and "TM out" — a reference to DX division head and CEO Roh Tae-moon.

"Behind the company's strong performance lies the hard work and dedication of DX division employees," the union said. "Yet management has created an extreme compensation disparity between business divisions in this round of negotiations, leaving DX employees with a deep sense of alienation and resentment."

Samsung Electronics and its unions agreed through this year's wage negotiations to create a new special performance bonus for the semiconductor, or DS, division. Employees in the memory chip unit — the engine of the DS division's earnings — are expected to receive around 600 million won in bonuses, while DX division workers received only about 6 million won ($4,030) worth of treasury shares. The gap of up to roughly 100 times has fueled widespread resentment within the DX division.

The bonus dispute has deepened divisions between the two sides of the company. Feeling shortchanged, many DX division employees have left the Samsung Electronics chapter of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions — previously the company's majority union and centered on the DS division. That union's membership has shrunk to about 54,355, while the Donghang union has grown to 28,591. Combined with the third union, the National Samsung Electronics Labor Union with 22,890 members, the two smaller unions now rival the federation chapter in size.

The Donghang union urged management to draw up a substantive and acceptable compensation package equivalent to 1,000 treasury shares per DX division employee.

It also demanded that management secure and publicly disclose a company-wide compensation fund for all employees in advance, to prevent a repeat of what it called the unfair outcome of the 2026 wage negotiations.

The union said management must immediately nullify the results of the 2026 wage negotiations — which it said bypassed the DX division — and return to genuine bargaining.

"We warn that we will not back down until our legitimate demands are met," the union said. "If management tries to brush aside this situation, we will mobilize every means available and launch an all-out fight."

Last month, DX division employees had already staged a collective action, coming to work dressed in black to protest the bonus disparity.