Conflicts inside and around Samsung Electronics' unions are growing. The DX division union put up an ad on an electronic billboard in New York's Times Square criticising workforce efficiency moves. From the 18th, it will begin an open-ended rally outside the home of Chairman Jay Y. Lee. Elsewhere, 6 people, including the chair of an enterprise-wide union, were sent to prosecutors on allegations of creating a list of union members. As the Ministry of Employment and Labor issued enforcement guidelines filtering out performance bonuses and AI adoption from the scope of labour disputes, the legal leverage unions can wield has instead shrunk.

Samsung Electronics Labor Union Donghaeng (Donghaeng union) said in a statement on the 5th that the Times Square advertisement had been aired. A 15-second video includes the phrases "GREAT PRODUCTS BEGIN WITH PEOPLE" and "WE ARE STILL HERE". It will be shown every hour for 24 hours from 12:35 a.m. local time in New York on the 5th (1:35 p.m. in South Korea). It was timed to coincide with Samsung Electronics' schedule at IFA 2026 in Berlin, where it is presenting an artificial intelligence blueprint.

The union said the company speaks of AI innovation on the outside, while inside it is using AI transformation (AX) as a basis to split work units, quantify efficiency and calculate the required workforce size. The Donghaeng union said, "We are not opposed to AI," adding, "We want to ask whether the number at the end of AX is innovation or a headcount reduction."

It has 3 demands. They are 1,000 shares of the company's stock per DX employee, creating and distributing a common fund carved out as a certain percentage of companywide performance, and applying the same base pay raise rate (Base-up) across the company. The union's position is that DX voices were left out of wage talks in May and that the compensation gap with the Device Solutions (DS) division, which is in charge of semiconductors, is excessive. At a rally near the Seocho office building on Aug. 21, it argued management was responsible for declining profitability.

◆ Labor ministry: "Opposition itself to adopting AI is not a subject of labour disputes"

But the union's demands run directly into a changed institutional environment. The Ministry of Employment and Labor said in a draft enforcement guideline on the scope of labour disputes, released on the 3rd, that demands for performance bonuses of N percent of operating profit and opposition to building a semiconductor plant in Honam are not subjects of mandatory bargaining or mediation and industrial action. After the Yellow Envelope Act (revised Trade Union Act) took effect and interpretations in the field diverged over the scope of disputes, it made its interpretation guideline a step more specific in February.

The ministry saw demands for performance bonuses linked to sales or operating profit as having a high potential to affect the interests of third parties such as shareholders. It said operating profit is profit before subtracting interest, corporate tax and dividends, and is also a source of funding for research and development (R&D) and facility investment. By contrast, it said demands that specify an amount as a certain percentage of annual salary or base pay, or as a fixed sum, are open to bargaining.

It also set an "objective expectation" standard for new plant construction and AI adoption. Bargaining aimed at blocking the management decision itself does not stand, it said. But if a workforce management plan such as layoffs or redeployment is established and decided and a change in working conditions is objectively expected, it becomes subject to mandatory bargaining. It said it is difficult based solely on adopting AI or new technology, but from the point when shift system changes or workforce cuts are actually made concrete, they fall within the scope of bargaining and dispute action.

Even if companies on the employer side do not accept such demands, it does not view this as an unfair labour practice. If a union sticks to its demands, the labour commission will recommend changes to the proposal. If it does not comply, it will issue administrative guidance instead of granting the right to industrial action. Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon (김영훈) said, "This is to increase predictability in the field and prevent labour-management disputes."

◆ Six sent to prosecutors over '100,000-person blacklist'... conflict axis shifts to unions against unions

Cracks among unions have also surfaced. Hwaseong Dongtan Police Station in Gyeonggi province said on the 4th it sent to prosecutors without detention Choi Seung-ho (최승호), chair of the Samsung Electronics branch of the Samsung Group enterprise-wide labour union, and an executive identified as A on suspicion of violating the Personal Information Protection Act. It also handed over 4 employees who accessed the internal system abnormally. A is known to have extracted a file containing a list of about 100,000 executives and employees and delivered it to the union.

Samsung Electronics said it had confirmed in April that a list containing department names, names, employee numbers and union membership status was shared in a group messenger chat room of a department. It then notified employees internally and filed a complaint. It said records showed about 20,000 accesses to an internal work site within just over an hour to view personal information, which was flagged by an abnormal traffic detection system. Police conducted a complainant interview and 3 search and seizure operations. Choi said in a notice to union members, "It is not related to a blacklist," and countered that the company submitted a petition not seeking punishment under a labour-management agreement.

The Donghaeng union is asking the company to confirm whether personal information of its members was leaked in this case. The Donghaeng union said, "In Berlin, Samsung talks about the future, but in New York, the 50,000 DX who made today's Samsung ask." Berlin is the city where IFA 2026 is being held.

The launching ceremony on the 18th is a turning point. With legal paths to industrial action narrowing, the situation will hinge on whether the Donghaeng union revises its demands into a base-pay-linked method or puts more weight on an external public opinion campaign. The structure in which multiple unions coexist, making it difficult to consolidate demands into one, is also a variable. The enterprise-wide union's position is that it will focus on the companywide labour-management council election in September and preparations for the 2027 wage and collective bargaining agreement.