Samsung Electronics DX Union to Seek Court Order to Halt Vote on 2026 Wage Deal

Three labor unions representing mainly Samsung Electronics Co.'s non-chip employees plan to ask a court to stop a membership vote on a tentative 2026 wage agreement.

Samsung Electronics Labor Union Donghaeng said in a statement on May 25 that it plans to file an injunction with the Suwon District Court at about 9 a.m. on May 26 to suspend the yes-or-no vote procedure.

Samsung Electronics is currently holding a membership vote on the tentative 2026 wage deal reached by management and the union with bargaining rights.

Donghaeng is the company's third-largest labor union and is made up mainly of employees in the Device eXperience, or DX, division, which oversees smartphones, home appliances and televisions.

Donghaeng's membership has recently grown to about 13,000 from about 2,600.

The union claims that the Samsung Group super-enterprise labor union's Samsung branch, the largest union with bargaining rights, excluded it and other minority unions after becoming alarmed by organized support among DX employees.

Donghaeng had previously formed a joint struggle headquarters with the Samsung branch and the National Samsung Electronics Labor Union, or Jeonsamno, and had continued joint negotiations with management.

It later withdrew from the group, saying the demands and views of DX employees were not properly reflected in the talks.

The Samsung branch argues that because Donghaeng left the joint body, it cannot be given voting rights on the tentative agreement.

In a statement, Donghaeng said the larger union's promise to gather opinions fairly amounted to "nothing more than a dirty trick." It accused the union of outwardly claiming to respect voting rights, only to strip them away once DX employees began to unite in an effort to silence them.

If the tentative agreement is approved, employees in the DS division would receive pretax performance pay ranging from about $152,000 to as much as $435,000, based on an annual salary of about $72,000.

By contrast, DX employees may receive only company stock worth about $4,300.

That has fueled an organized campaign to vote down the agreement among employees in the DX division and non-memory businesses.

The membership vote on the tentative agreement is scheduled to run until 10 a.m. on May 27.

Park Sang-kyung, Hankyung.com reporter highseoul@hankyung.com