Samsung Electronics Labor Union Chair Choi Seung-ho (Newsis) The leader of Samsung Electronics’ largest labor union has survived a confidence vote after asking members to judge his handling of this year’s wage negotiations.The Samsung Electronics Labor Union said Tuesday that 38,336 of its 54,165 members cast ballots in an electronic vote held from June 24 to 10 a.m. Tuesday, putting turnout at 70.8 percent.The confidence motion was approved with 33,550 votes in favor, or 87.5 percent of ballots cast. Members also voted on proposed revisions to the union’s rules.Chair Choi Seung-ho had called the vote after saying he would take responsibility for the outcome of this year’s wage talks with Samsung Electronics.Choi is expected to focus the union’s 2027 wage bargaining on Samsung’s Device Solutions division, the company’s chipmaking business. He has said the union will seek to have the DS division recognized as a separate bargaining unit, form a dedicated committee, and secure status as an employee representative.If separate bargaining is rejected, the union plans to seek status as the representative bargaining union and negotiate independently, rather than through a broader bargaining group.A joint bargaining group that includes the Samsung Electronics Labor Union reached a tentative wage agreement with Samsung Electronics last month. The agreement included an average pay increase of 6.2 percent, a new special management performance bonus and a housing loan program.But the deal has drawn complaints from members, especially over how performance-based compensation would be distributed.The discontent has been particularly sharp because the size of expected payouts differs widely by division. Employees in the DS division’s memory business could receive performance-based compensation ranging from about 210 million won ($139,100) to as much as 600 million won for a worker with an annual salary of 100 million won, according to people familiar with internal estimates. By contrast, employees in the System LSI and foundry businesses, which have been under earnings pressure, are expected to receive around 200 million won.Employees in the Device eXperience division, which oversees smartphones, TVs and home appliances, have also pushed back against the tentative deal, as their expected payout under the new bonus scheme would amount to only about 6 million won in Samsung Electronics shares. Some DX employees reportedly left the broader bargaining group after the wage talks in protest.The backlash has also coincided with a decline in the union’s membership, undercutting the momentum it had gained during this year’s wage negotiations.The union is largely made up of semiconductor employees. Its membership topped 76,000 during this year’s wage negotiations, briefly giving it majority-union status at the company.It has since fallen below that threshold. As of 1 p.m. Monday, the union had 55,200 members.