Samsung’s consumer electronics and mobile workers are planning a rally near the company’s Suwon headquarters on July 16 to protest a bonus arrangement that pays chip division employees up to 100 times more than their non-semiconductor colleagues, according to Reuters.
Yonhap News Agency put the expected turnout at somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 people
The union organizing the demonstration, which covers workers in Samsung’s mobiles and consumer electronics division, has about 28,000 members. The bonus disparity driving the protest is stark. For 2026, workers on the consumer side — making everything from smartphones to televisions to home appliances — are looking at a bonus of approximately 6 million won, equivalent to around $3,900, distributed as treasury shares.
Chip division employees, by contrast, are eligible for payouts reaching as high as 600 million won. The chip workers secured that payout through a separate union and a separate negotiation concluded in May. Under the terms Samsung accepted, roughly 10.5% of the semiconductor division’s operating profit must flow to workers as special bonuses — a profit-sharing structure written into a binding contract, which The Next Web noted has precedent at only one other major Korean company.