$1 trillion<\/a> in market capitalization.<\/p>\nDespite the company\u2019s being known for much of its history for smartphones and TVs, in the first quarter of this year, 94 percent of Samsung\u2019s operating profit came from semiconductors. This has given the union significant leverage, as most of its 70,000 members work in this division.<\/p>\n
But even within this division, the company said, not everyone contributed equally.<\/p>\n
Carrying the division\u2019s profitability is its crown jewel, the memory unit, which makes the chips vital for A.I. But the division also includes two units, one that designs logic chips and one that makes chips for other companies, that are running losses.<\/p>\n
How much each unit deserved became the core sticking point in the negotiations. The union requested that the majority of the bonus pot be equally distributed among workers in all three units \u2014 as well as those in roles that do not directly create profits, like research. Samsung said it would be \u201csocially unacceptable\u201d to reward lackluster performance.<\/p>\n
In a statement on Wednesday, Samsung said the union\u2019s proposal \u201cdirectly contradicts the company\u2019s core management principle that \u2018rewards should follow performance.\u2019\u201d That night, the union agreed to back off to 40 percent.<\/p>\n
Outside the chip-making division, other fissures have opened up. With so much of the union\u2019s focus in the negotiations concerned with how to divvy things up in the semiconductor division, workers from the consumer electronics division have accused the union\u2019s leadership of sidelining their interests. Many remember a not-so-distant time when semiconductors were a loss-making business, and smartphones and TVs were the company\u2019s lifeline.<\/p>\n
Mr. Suh, the professor, said the Samsung Electronics union, which is also widely referred to as a \u201cmillennial and Gen Z\u201d union, represented a new species of labor movement native to the A.I. era \u2014 younger and less ideological than its predecessors, focused more on getting immediate wins than building broader worker solidarity.<\/p>\n
In the end, this may threaten the union\u2019s bargaining power. Over the last month, around 4,000 consumer electronics workers reportedly left the union, many of them rallying around a smaller union seen as better representing their interests. The splintering is likely to accelerate if Wednesday\u2019s provisional agreement is ratified.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, President Lee Jae Myung, a pro-labor liberal, also took aim at the union\u2019s demands, describing them as an overreach.<\/p>\n
\u201cLabor rights are meant to protect workers as a socially vulnerable group, but there are also the important principles of solidarity and responsibility that go along with it,\u201d he said. \u201cThey do not grant the power to use collective action to secure the rights of a small group of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meaghan Tobin contributed reporting from Taipei, Taiwan, and Jin Yu Young from Seoul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For months, workers at the semiconductor division of Samsung Electronics felt left behind in the global artificial intelligence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[19130,13588,8,17898,9,3830,19131,16655,656,2246,7,17896],"class_list":["post-31700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-bonuses","tag-computer-chips","tag-headlines","tag-labor-and-jobs","tag-news","tag-organized-labor","tag-samsung-electronics-co","tag-samsung-group","tag-south-korea","tag-strikes","tag-top-stories","tag-wages-and-salaries"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116615951307070354","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}