Samsung Biologics union's show of force backfires at the bargaining table

A post-mediation table painstakingly arranged to bridge the deep divide between Samsung Biologics management and its union ran aground before it could even get started. The session, brokered by the Incheon Regional Labor Relations Commission, was the first time the two sides had sat down together since mediation broke down in March — a gap spanning five months and 20 days, 27 rounds of formal bargaining, and an unprecedented full-scale strike. Yet what emerged from that first meeting was not a glimmer of compromise but a unilateral leak of meeting minutes and reports of a breakdown.

After the first post-mediation session on Tuesday, the Samsung Biologics Mutual Prosperity Labor Union distributed a five-page document compiled from the meeting to journalists and company employees. The document contained the opening remarks of the mediation chair — a public-interest commissioner — along with the names and verbatim quoted statements of the employer-side commissioner, the worker-side commissioner, and the company's chief bargaining representative. Article 27, Paragraph 2 of the Labor Relations Commission Rules strictly prohibits audio recording, video recording, and photography without the chair's permission in order to maintain order during proceedings. Despite this, the union released a document bearing strong signs of unauthorized recording, disregarding even the most basic rules of a formal mediation process.

More troubling still is the selective editing and distortion. In a closed mediation, a commissioner is expected to press both sides hard to narrow the gap between them — and in practice the chair called on both parties to make concessions. Yet the opening section of the union's circulated minutes was edited to highlight only the parts where, as the document framed it, "the chair and the worker-side commissioner criticized management's lack of sincerity and good faith." Distributing named individuals' statements without their consent and editing them with apparent malice carries a serious risk of violating defamation provisions under the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and the Personal Information Protection Act.

Ultimately, observers say the union brought the situation on itself by clinging to an ill-advised show of force. Having already staged the company's first-ever full-scale strike in May, the union has few meaningful bargaining cards left to play. A second strike would, given the nature of biopharmaceutical production, inevitably trigger batch losses and customer defections — damage that would be incalculable. Weighed down by that reality, the union chose instead to file seven lawsuits at the very moment post-mediation talks began, then immediately after the session passed a resolution for a second strike and leaked the minutes — a brinkmanship with no clear justification that only ratcheted up pressure. What is needed now is not a muscle-flexing show of force but a genuine willingness to find common ground through dialogue.

The deepest contradiction here is that the union's reckless conduct is holding back the very members who most want a settlement before Chuseok. Rank-and-file workers want to pocket a pre-holiday bonus and put the conflict behind them — yet the leadership's scorched-earth leak campaign has slammed the door on compromise, ignoring the wishes of those on the ground. The employer-side commissioner's deadline of "before Chuseok, no later than Sept. 22" was urgently needed to ease the fatigue of employees worn down by a prolonged standoff.

Management, too, has every reason to want a swift resolution: a new European contract worth 350.8 billion won ($261 million) has pushed the company's cumulative order backlog to the cusp of $22 billion. Even so, it cannot simply abandon its principles. The union's demand for prior agreement on any changes to the personnel management system encroaches on management's prerogative. If the company rushes to paper over the union's unauthorized recording and one-sided distortion of a confidential proceeding just to beat a deadline, it will find itself held hostage to strike threats every holiday season.

Peace without principle is built on sand. Without first restoring the procedural integrity and mutual trust that have been broken, no durable agreement is possible. The labor-management culture of a company that leads Korean biotech on the world stage can only stand on a foundation of mature respect for the law and mutual respect — not on tantrums and underhanded tactics.