(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Kim Min-ji = As the Samsung Branch of the Samsung Group's Large Enterprise Labor Union (hereinafter referred to as the Large Enterprise Labor Union), the largest labor union at Samsung Electronics, begins discussions to prepare a demand for '2027 wage and collective bargaining (hereinafter referred to as collective wage negotiation)', the battle of wits between the unions is intensifying.
Because the large enterprise union accounts for the majority of its members, it is confident that it will be selected as the representative bargaining union, and its position is that there will be no problem even if it does not engage in joint negotiations with other unions.
On the other hand, unions focused on the DX (device experience) sector are of the position that joint bargaining is absolutely necessary, so conflict appears inevitable.
According to the industry on the 18th, the Samsung Electronics Labor Union Donghaeng (hereinafter referred to as Donghaeng Labor Union) plans to send an official letter to the large enterprise labor union in the near future to announce its rejection of the '2027 collective bargaining request' previously requested by the large enterprise union.
On the 15th, the large enterprise labor union announced to the Donghaeng Workers' Union and the National Samsung Electronics Workers' Union (hereinafter referred to as Jeonsamno), "We expect to become the representative bargaining union in the process of unifying the bargaining channel to be held in December. In order to faithfully fulfill our duty of fair representation, we ask you to reply to us in writing with our demands."
A policy committee meeting is scheduled to be held on the 29th and 30th to establish demands for 'collective bargaining in 2027', and the explanation is that the two unions' demands will be forwarded so that the opinions of the Donghaeng Workers' Union and Jeonsamno can be considered.
However, the Donghaeng Workers' Union and the Jeonsam Workers' Union argued that it was inappropriate for the large enterprise union to request the establishment of an opinion in a situation where the process for unifying the bargaining channel had not yet begun and the representative bargaining union had not been determined.
Jeon Sam-no said, "At this point, it is not appropriate to submit a request for negotiation in 2027 assuming a specific labor union as the representative labor union. In the future, when the process for unifying the negotiation channel is completed and the representative labor union for 2027 is finalized, we plan to deliver the request for negotiation to the confirmed representative labor union and request it to reflect the negotiation."
As the performance gap between the DS and DX sectors is large, the conflict between unions is intensifying even before full-fledged collective wage negotiations begin next year.
Samsung Electronics unions proceed with the process of unifying the negotiation channel before negotiating with the management. If autonomous unification is not achieved here, the majority union to which the majority of Samsung Electronics executives and employees who have joined the union is selected as the representative bargaining union after confirmation by the Labor Relations Commission.
Currently, the large enterprise union has about 53,000 members. The Donghaeng Workers' Union and Jeonsamno have about 31,000 members each, and Jeonsamno has about 24,000 members.
Large enterprise unions are expected to become the representative bargaining union because they are the majority union.
The large enterprise union previously declared a shift to focusing on the DS sector after a member vote and announced that it would negotiate separately from the DX sector in next year's wage negotiations and represent only the voices of the DS sector.
On the other hand, the Donghaeng Workers' Union claims that the voices of DX division members were excluded from the wage negotiations concluded between Samsung Electronics labor and management in May of this year and is requesting that a joint negotiation framework be established so that wage negotiations can be negotiated together with the DS division.
