Samsung’s internal pay gap intensifies! Court rejects injunction to stop the vote; chip and non-chip employees’ bonus gap exceeds 80 times.

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The controversy within Samsung Electronics over salary distribution has been temporarily settled with a court ruling, but the distribution gap exposed by this protracted labor-management struggle continues to ferment inside the world’s largest memory chip manufacturer.

On May 26, according to Yonhap News Agency, the Suwon District Court in South Korea on Wednesday rejected an injunction filed by employees of Samsung Electronics’ DX (Digital Experience) division, removing legal barriers to the vote on a bonus plan for the semiconductor division, worth around 40 trillion won (about $26.6 billion).

Meanwhile, as of Monday night, 87% of eligible voting members had cast their votes, with the final result expected on Wednesday. Analysts expect the agreement to pass. This would mean around 78,000 employees in Samsung Semiconductor’s (DS) division are set to share this huge bonus as planned—according to Bloomberg, based on the terms of the agreement and 2026 profit forecasts, each employee would receive an average of about 513 million won (around $340,000).

In contrast, DX division employees are expected to receive only 6 million won in bonuses, a gap of more than 80 times. The average salary for Samsung employees in 2025 will be 158 million won.

No Fundamental Defect in Negotiation Procedure

According to Yonhap News Agency, the 31st Civil Division of the Suwon District Court (presiding judge Shin Woo-jeong) ruled on the case on the 26th, dismissing the "Samsung Electronics Employees’ Rights Recovery Legal Response Alliance," made up of five DX division union members, which had applied for an injunction to "suspend the 2026 salary and collective bargaining."

The court stated in its dismissal that "it cannot be determined that there is a major defect in the content of the negotiation plan," also noting that the largest union conducted a survey when preparing the plan, "and from the process, it’s hard to say the procedures failed to reflect the will of affiliate union members."

The court further noted that since a preliminary agreement had already been reached, "there is reason to believe collective bargaining has concluded."

Previously, DX division employees questioned the largest union’s procedural decisions, alleging the union, without a resolution by the general assembly, replaced negotiation demands with the results of a one-week "Naver form survey" conducted from November 7 to 13 last year, directly violating union rules.

Salary Fracture: Chip Division's Profit Dominance Triggers Internal Tension

The root of the dispute lies in the widening salary gap between different business divisions inside Samsung.

Samsung’s semiconductor business is a key beneficiary of the global artificial intelligence infrastructure boom, with its memory chips widely used in smartphones, electric vehicles, and AI data center servers powering services like ChatGPT and Claude.

With Samsung poised to rank among the world’s most profitable companies this year, the overwhelming contribution of the chip division to overall profits provides a commercial logic for leaning distribution toward the DS division.

The DX division manages consumer electronic products such as smartphones, home appliances, and televisions. Its employees feel their interests are being ignored in collective bargaining.

Samsung Electronics has three unions; the smallest union’s members are mainly from the DX division. Previously, the smallest union joined the other two in forming a collective bargaining committee to negotiate with management. Later, claiming DX employee interests were not sufficiently represented, it withdrew from the joint bargaining structure. The largest union then announced that members of the smallest union no longer had voting rights for the agreement.

Although the court rejected the injunction, the mobilization effect of the DX division union should not be overlooked. The number of members in the smallest union rapidly surged from about 3,000 before the preliminary agreement to nearly 13,000 by Tuesday morning, more than tripling.

This labor-management conflict reflects Samsung’s internal governance challenges during a period of rapid expansion: how to maintain a sense of salary fairness and employee cohesion in a business model where profits are highly concentrated in a single division.

Once the agreement is formally passed, Samsung’s management will continue to face pressure from non-chip divisions, and balancing the incentive mechanisms between various business lines may become the core issue for the next round of negotiations.

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