Unionized Samsung workers voting on strike over inadequate raise offer

Members of the National Samsung Electronics Union are voting on whether to strike over an annual raise offer of 3 percent.

Samsung Electronics' headquarters in Suwon, Gyeonggi. [NEWS1]

Unionized workers at Samsung Electronics are voting on striking for the first time in the company's history after its largest labor union and management failed to reach an agreement on pay raises.

Many Samsung Electronics employees remain disgruntled over the salary offered for this year, with a suggested raise of 3 percent on their base salaries — lower than both what was expected and what rival chipmaker SK hynix is providing.

The National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) was granted the right to initiate a strike after the union and the company failed to reach an agreement.

Some 16 percent of the 124,000 total Samsung employees are unionized.

The union members are conducting a vote on whether to proceed with a strike, with a deadline set for April 5. The commencement of collective action requires a majority in favor with more than 80 percent of the union's members voting.

Participation hit 84.5 percent as of 3:44 p.m. on Wednesday, a mere three days since the poll opened, to surpass the threshold sooner than expected.

“Other unions are voting on the matter as well, so it doesn’t mean we will immediately initiate the strike after the vote ends on April 5,” NSEU Secretary-General Son Woo-mok told the Korea JoongAng Daily. “As emphasized before, we are always ready to engage in discussions if suggested by the company.”

Workers in the chip division were excluded from a bonus payout this year due to a slump in chip sales.

Samsung Electronics' semiconductor business generated a loss of 14.88-trillion-won ($11.1 billion) last year.

SK hynix employees’ annual salary turned out to be higher than that of Samsung’s last year, according to the company’s electronic disclosure on Tuesday.

The average annual salary among SK hynix employees was 121 million won for 2023, down 9.59 percent on year but higher than Samsung’s 120 million won. In 2022, Samsung had a higher average salary with 135 million won, while SK hynix employees received 133 million won.

While Samsung's chip division performed poorly last year, SK secured more than 1.1 trillion won with the sale of its water treatment facilities in Icheon, Gyeonggi, which it considered to be a non-core asset.

The funds will be used to develop technologies and investments in future industries, the company said.

A total of 6.59 trillion won invested toward developments such as increasing production capacities, a sum down 66.5 percent on year compared to 2022’s 19.65 trillion won.

The highest-paid SK hynix executive turned out to be Park Sung-wook, an advisory board member. He received 4.59 billion won last year, including profits earned from exercising stock purchase options amounting to 3.6 billion won. Vice Chairman Park Jung-ho came in second with 3.83 billion won, and CEO Kwak Noh-jung was in third with 1.87 billion won.

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won received 2.5 billion won in salary, but was paid 6 billion won in total after including an additional 3.5 billion won salary from SK Inc, the holding company of SK subsidiaries.

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]