Samsung Electronics' Donghaeng union launches indefinite sit-in outside Lee Jae-yong's home

The Samsung Electronics union Donghaeng called Friday for direct talks with Chairman Lee Jae-yong over wage negotiations and performance bonuses. The union is made up primarily of employees in Samsung Electronics' Device eXperience (DX) division, which oversees the company's home appliances, TV and smartphone businesses.

About 40 union members gathered outside Lee's home in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, for an inaugural rally, marking the start of an indefinite relay sit-in.

"The company has yet to even set up a proper dialogue table with us," Donghaeng said, calling on the company to "create a dialogue table where we can speak directly with Chairman Lee Jae-yong." The union also wants a joint bargaining framework that would allow it to negotiate wages alongside the Device Solutions (DS) division, which handles Samsung's semiconductor business.

Samsung Group's largest union, the Samsung branch of the inter-company labor union — centered on DS division workers — had earlier declared it would bargain separately from the DX division starting with the 2027 wage negotiations. Donghaeng, however, maintains that joint bargaining is necessary, arguing that a portion of company-wide performance results should be set aside as a shared pool.

The union also demanded Friday that the company respond to a "union blacklist" incident in which employees' personal information was allegedly shared internally. "The company must clearly disclose whether employees were harmed, how the information was leaked, the scope of its use and what follow-up measures were taken," Donghaeng said, adding that it had already prepared more than 15,000 petitions calling for severe punishment of Samsung inter-company union chief Choi Seung-ho and others involved.

Meanwhile, Donghaeng said it plans to launch a wage and collective bargaining TF as soon as it completes its next leadership election on Sept. 28, at which point it will formally push for a joint bargaining structure.