SEOUL, May 26 (AJP) - The AI windfall powering record earnings and soaring stock prices is increasingly turning into a curse in disguise for Samsung Electronics, as wage negotiations meant to share the rewards of the semiconductor boom instead expose widening internal disparities and threaten the company’s long-cultivated “One Samsung” ethos.
Just days before a crucial ratification vote on the tentative wage agreement, divisions between labor groups escalated into open legal conflict Tuesday, deepening uncertainty over whether the deal can stabilize the company’s fractured labor landscape.
The Samsung Electronics Co. Union (SECU), a minority union representing primarily employees in the Device eXperience (DX) division — the segment overseeing smartphones and home appliances — filed for an injunction to halt the ongoing vote, arguing that the representative union unfairly stripped thousands of its members of voting rights shortly before the deadline.
At the heart of the dispute lies mounting anger over what many employees see as an increasingly skewed compensation structure under the AI-driven semiconductor boom.
The proposed agreement would allow some employees in the semiconductor-focused Device Solutions (DS) division to receive compensation packages approaching 600 million won ($438,000), while some research and development staff in non-chip divisions reportedly receive bonuses as low as 6 million won. The staggering disparity has intensified resentment across divisions and accelerated a sharp realignment inside Samsung’s union structure.
The current legal standoff unfolded through a rapid and chaotic sequence of events last week that SECU claims exposed serious procedural inconsistencies.
According to union officials, the representative union initially invited SECU members to participate in the tentative agreement vote through official emails sent May 20 and May 21.
Around the same period, however, SECU experienced a sudden influx of roughly 10,000 new members, swelling its total eligible voting base to approximately 12,000 employees.
But shortly after the expansion, the representative union abruptly notified SECU on the evening of May 21 that its members would no longer be granted voting rights.
Koo Jeong-hwan, secretary general of SECU, alleged the move reflected fears that the rapidly enlarged minority union could significantly influence the outcome and potentially derail approval of the wage pact.
“That itself is a procedural violation,” Koo told AJP. “This situation is really serious.”
He argued that denying employees the right to vote represented both an abuse of authority and a breach of basic labor principles.
The dispute illustrates how the AI boom is reshaping not only Samsung’s earnings profile but also its internal corporate order.
For decades, Samsung maintained a tightly controlled organizational culture built around cohesion, hierarchy and collective identity. But the explosion in AI-related profits within the semiconductor business is increasingly fragmenting that structure into competing constituencies divided by business lines, compensation gaps and perceptions of unequal recognition.
The tentative wage deal itself had initially been viewed as a breakthrough after management narrowly avoided an unprecedented strike that threatened to disrupt the global memory chip supply chain.
Instead, the agreement now risks becoming a catalyst for broader distrust across the company.
Koo warned that if the vote proceeds without resolving procedural disputes, Samsung could face prolonged legal and operational uncertainty even if the agreement is formally approved.
“If the vote is invalidated later, all voting matters from this point would become void and need to be conducted again,” he said.
As the Wednesday deadline approaches, the court’s decision on the injunction could determine not only the fate of this year’s wage agreement, but also how Samsung navigates a far more fragmented labor environment in the AI era.
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