SEOUL, October 19 (AJP) - Investors are moving on from Samsung Electronics amid quibbles over whether the AI boom is past its heyday, but inside the company employees are still fighting over their share of the profits it has already delivered.
The simmering dispute has escalated into allegations of a physical confrontation between security personnel and a union leader representing disgruntled consumer electronics employees, prompting calls for an apology from Chairman Lee Jae-yong.
“What we received was not dialogue but physical violence,” Samsung’s Donghaeng union said at a press conference outside the company’s Seocho office on Monday afternoon, referring to an Oct. 16 encounter at its Suwon campus.
The union alleges that its leader, Son Yong-ho, was injured when security personnel restrained him as he approached a vehicle it identified as Lee’s to seek direct talks with the chairman.
Son was pushed against a wall and fell, striking his head on the floor, according to the union. It said he required hospital treatment for bruising, dizziness, concussion-like symptoms and a temporary loss of memory surrounding part of the encounter.
Son appeared at Monday’s press conference in hospital clothing and said he had hurried to the event by taxi. Asked about his admission and discharge dates and his diagnosis, union officials declined to provide details, citing personal privacy.
The union said it had confirmed that Lee emerged from the vehicle after it moved away. Samsung declined to comment on the encounter.
The union demanded a personal apology from Lee, an investigation and action against those responsible, along with direct dialogue with employees. It said repeated requests to meet the chairman had been rejected and discussions with human resources officials and senior management had led nowhere.
For now, the union said it was seeking an apology and accountability rather than pursuing legal action.
The confrontation has brought Samsung’s widening internal divisions into public view just as investors begin questioning the longevity of the windfall behind them.
Samsung estimated third-quarter operating profit at a record 107.4 trillion won (about $80 billion), nearly nine times the year-earlier figure, with an operating margin above 55 percent. Cumulative operating profit through September reached 254.13 trillion won, about 10 times its full-year earnings in 2025.
Yet the extraordinary earnings have offered little protection against the stock market’s reassessment of AI.
Concerns over the cost of financing AI infrastructure and the returns on that investment have unsettled technology shares, challenging expectations that the spending boom will keep delivering ever-larger gains for chipmakers.
Samsung shares have lost about 21 percent this month. They recovered 3 percent Monday.
Inside the company, the argument is over how the gains already made should be distributed.
The Device Solutions division, which houses Samsung’s semiconductor business, has benefited from surging demand for AI memory chips. Employees in the Device eXperience division, which makes smartphones, televisions and home appliances, argue that the resulting compensation gap overlooks their contribution to the same company.
The company’s largest union estimates that a memory-chip employee with a base salary of around 80 million won could receive about 750 million won in pretax bonuses, including existing annual incentives, if full-year operating profit reaches 370 trillion won.
Device eXperience employees are excluded from the new semiconductor bonus scheme. They were instead allocated 6 million won worth of shares alongside their existing incentives, fueling resentment over the disparity.
The dispute predates the latest market rout. But the reversal has left management confronting two very different demands: investors want reassurance about future profits, while employees want a greater share of past gains.
Samsung must now settle the argument over the rewards of the boom before the divisions it has exposed outlast the windfall itself.
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