The workers who build Samsung’s phones, televisions, and washing machines are about to make their unhappiness visible.
Their union says several thousand of them will gather near the company’s Suwon headquarters on 16 July to protest the bonuses their colleagues in the chip division have won, a grievance that has been building since the semiconductor pay deal was struck in May. Somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 people are expected to turn out.
The arithmetic behind the anger is easy to follow. Staff in Samsung’s Device eXperience division, the part of the company that makes the products most people actually touch, are set to receive a 2026 bonus of about 6 million won, roughly $3,900, paid in treasury shares.
Workers in the semiconductor division stand to collect up to 600 million won. That is a gap of about a hundred to one between two halves of the same employer, and it has proved impossible to explain away.
The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!The chip workers earned their windfall through a separate union and a separate negotiation, one that produced something unusual in Korean labour history.
