Samsung Electronics Strike Averted: Union Agreement Includes $416K Bonuses in Stock - News and Statistics

May 22, 2026

Samsung Electronics saw its share price jump sharply on Thursday after the company reached a last-minute agreement with its South Korean union, preventing a walkout. The deal, which includes bonuses worth around $416,000 for certain workers, has raised some concerns, according to a report from Reuters.

A proposed 18-day strike involving roughly 48,000 union members has been put on hold. The terms, which were mediated by the government, will be subject to a vote from May 22 to May 27. The union’s leader has expressed confidence that the agreement will be approved.

The resolution brought a wave of relief across South Korea. Samsung accounts for approximately a quarter of the nation’s exports, and the threatened strike was expected to cause serious harm to the economy and disrupt global chip supplies.

Samsung’s shares and the benchmark KOSPI index both surged nearly 8% during morning trading.

Ryu Young-ho, a senior analyst at NH Investment & Securities, noted that while investors were relieved the strike was avoided, the deal was not entirely positive because it led to significantly higher labor costs. On the positive side for Samsung, the decision to pay performance bonuses in stock rather than cash could reduce the company’s immediate financial strain.

A union demand that 15% of operating profit be used for bonuses was also reduced. Under the agreement, Samsung is expected to allocate about 10.5% of operating profit for special bonuses for the chip division, which includes its memory and logic chip operations, according to the union. A document indicated these bonuses would be paid in company stock for at least 10 years and are contingent on the chip division achieving more than 200 trillion won in annual operating profit from 2026 to 2028 and 100 trillion won from 2029 to 2035.

A union source, who declined to be identified, said that a memory chip worker with a base salary of 80 million won would receive a bonus of around 626 million won—or $416,000—this year, mostly in stock.

Samsung Electronics chip division chief Jun Young-hyun, in a letter seen by Reuters, urged staff to move past the period of conflict and work together to boost the company’s global competitiveness and long-term growth.

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