Jealous of SK Hynix's $475,000 Per Capita Bonus? Samsung Union Demands 15% Operating Profit, Threatens 18-Day Strike

Driven by the surge in AI-driven demand for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), Samsung Electronics' first-quarter net profit skyrocketed nearly sixfold. Facing the massive wealth dividend of the AI era, the two major Samsung unions are demanding the company distribute 15% of each division's operating profit to employees, along with a 7% wage increase. If their demands are not met, the unions threaten to hold an 18-day strike starting May 21.

The most direct catalyst for this labor dispute is the massive dividend payout by competitor SK Hynix. SK Hynix has pledged to allocate 10% of its operating profit annually to employees over the next decade; based on this year's profit estimates, its 35,000 employees could each receive an average of $475,000 (about 700 million KRW). In contrast, mid-level Samsung employees currently receive an annual year-end bonus of only about 45 million KRW. This gap of more than tenfold directly ignited employee sentiment, with nearly 40,000 workers staging a protest rally outside the Pyeongtaek chip plant in late April. According to Bloomberg estimates, if Samsung agrees to the union's demanded 15% profit dividend, the per capita bonus for its employees would also exceed $400,000, thus closing the compensation gap with SK Hynix.

Currently, negotiations between the two sides are at a stalemate. Insiders say Samsung management recently raised their compromise offer from 10% to about 13% of operating profit, but the union rejected the one-time compensation, insisting that "proportional profit sharing" be permanently written into company policy. If the strike goes ahead, it would not only cause direct losses exceeding 10 trillion KRW but also severely damage Samsung's foundry credibility in supplying next-generation HBM4 chips to Nvidia.

However, this battle has also torn Samsung apart internally. Because Samsung still retains divisions like home appliances and mobile phones, which face relatively tighter profit margins, calculating 15% of profits separately by division would mean chip division employees take the vast majority of the money. To avoid exacerbating internal pay inequality, a smaller union composed mainly of home appliance and mobile phone employees withdrew from the joint strike on Monday.