Samsung Electronics' labour union will hold a vote from March 9 on whether to take industrial action. A joint strike committee made up of the Samsung Electronics branch of the National Metal Workers' Union, the National Samsung Electronics Union and Samsung Electronics Union Donghaeng said on Thursday it will conduct the vote from March 9 to March 18. If a majority of all union members approves, it will secure the right to strike. The joint committee said it is planning step-by-step action, including an all-member rally in April and a general strike in May.

The joint committee formed a joint bargaining group in November last year and held wage talks with management for about three months. It held eight rounds of main negotiations and six days of intensive talks. It also went through mediation at the Central Labor Relations Commission. But the sides failed to narrow their differences, and the commission decided to halt mediation at a second mediation meeting on March 3.

The main issue is the OPI, an excess profit performance bonus system. The OPI pays up to 50 percent of annual salary, within a limit of 20 percent of excess profit, when results exceed targets. The union says the standard is unclear because the calculation applies the concept of economic value added, or EVA. Its demands include shifting to an operating profit-based system and removing the performance bonus cap.

Management proposed a plan that would partly accept the union's demand for greater transparency by allowing a choice of OPI funding based on either 20 percent of EVA or 10 percent of operating profit. It also offered measures to improve pay and welfare, including a 6.2 percent wage increase, 20 treasury shares, higher salary caps by grade, housing loan support of up to 500 million won and expanded long-service leave. It also proposed a special reward plan for the DS Division, which is in charge of the semiconductor business, to pay an additional 100 percent in OPI if it achieves 100 trillion won in operating profit.

But the union stuck to its demand to remove the OPI cap. Management did not accept it, saying many divisions that would find it difficult to exceed the OPI threshold could feel a sense of relative deprivation if the cap were removed.

In July 2024, Samsung Electronics saw its first strike since it was founded, after the National Samsung Electronics Union held an indefinite general strike for 25 days. If a strike is approved in the vote, it would face a second strike in about two years. The combined membership of the three unions stands at about 90,000.