For Whom the Victory
In the past few days, a class drama has come to an end in the heart of South Korean capitalism. The Samsung Electronics union reached a tentative agreement one day before the planned 18-day general strike scheduled for May 21, and on May 27, the wage agreement was ratified in a member vote with a 95.5% turnout and 73.7% approval. Workers in the semiconductor division will receive an average bonus of approximately $340,000. Samsung's first-quarter operating profit this year was $39 billion, with 94% of that coming from semiconductors. Its market capitalization exceeded $1 trillion. On the surface, this is a victory for labor. By wielding the weapon of a strike, they extracted material concessions from capital. I do not belittle this victory itself. The $340,000 won by Samsung semiconductor workers is a tangible material achievement, and it would have been impossible without their united strength.
However, if we look behind this victory, a completely different picture emerges. First, there is class division within Samsung Electronics. While the semiconductor division generates 94% of total profits, workers in the consumer electronics division felt their interests were excluded during the negotiation process. About 4,000 workers in the home appliance division left the union and moved to a smaller union. The struggle over semiconductor excess profits divided workers within the same company into winners and losers. This division is no accident. The structure in which the AI boom concentrates excess profits in specific sectors creates fault lines within the working class. Second, there is the manner of state intervention. President Lee Jae-myung called the union's demands "overreach." A labor-friendly liberal regime mobilizing emergency arbitration to prevent a strike and publicly criticizing the union. The state, regardless of the political color of the regime, invariably sides with capital when the interests of monopoly capital are threatened. President Lee Jae-myung's response clearly illustrated that fact once again.
There is a deeper point elsewhere. Professor Seo Yong-gu of Sookmyung Women's University called the Samsung union a "millennial-Gen Z union," commenting that it is less ideological than previous generations and more focused on immediate gains. This assessment carries the subtle relief characteristic of bourgeois media, but at the same time, it is a sober recognition of reality. This union does not speak of class solidarity. It focuses on its own division, its own bonuses, its own share. It does not problematize capitalist relations of production. It merely demands a larger share within those relations. The phenomenon of a specific segment receiving benefits of excess profits and becoming separated from other workers—sometimes called a "labor aristocracy"—has been reproduced. In this struggle over the distribution of excess profits brought by the AI supercycle, the victorious worker does not see that their victory stands upon the defeat of other workers. The material basis of the $340,000 bonus is precisely the fact that AI is destroying jobs in other sectors. While a $10-per-hour robot in a logistics warehouse replaces human labor, the worker making the memory chips that go into that robot receives $340,000. The excess profits created by AI technology do not liberate the entire working class; rather, they split the working class into beneficiaries and victims of excess profits.
This victory of the Samsung union does not signify a victory for the entire working class. Rather, it is close to the result of a mechanism in which the capitalist AI accumulation system ties one segment of the working class to itself and isolates the rest. The path to breaking this mechanism is not larger bonuses, but the reconstruction of class solidarity that transcends the inter-division competition over the distribution of bonuses itself. The recognition that semiconductor workers and home appliance workers, Samsung workers and supplier workers, regular and irregular workers, and all workers whose jobs are threatened by AI share a common interest. Without that recognition, the $340,000 achievement will only serve as a pretext to split workers into smaller pieces when the next quarter or the next crisis arrives. The figure of 73.7% approval records the union's victory, but it also records the question that the victorious workers have not yet asked. That question is this: I know this victory is my victory. But is it a victory for the class?
However, if we look behind this victory, a completely different picture emerges. First, there is class division within Samsung Electronics. While the semiconductor division generates 94% of total profits, workers in the consumer electronics division felt their interests were excluded during the negotiation process. About 4,000 workers in the home appliance division left the union and moved to a smaller union. The struggle over semiconductor excess profits divided workers within the same company into winners and losers. This division is no accident. The structure in which the AI boom concentrates excess profits in specific sectors creates fault lines within the working class. Second, there is the manner of state intervention. President Lee Jae-myung called the union's demands "overreach." A labor-friendly liberal regime mobilizing emergency arbitration to prevent a strike and publicly criticizing the union. The state, regardless of the political color of the regime, invariably sides with capital when the interests of monopoly capital are threatened. President Lee Jae-myung's response clearly illustrated that fact once again.
There is a deeper point elsewhere. Professor Seo Yong-gu of Sookmyung Women's University called the Samsung union a "millennial-Gen Z union," commenting that it is less ideological than previous generations and more focused on immediate gains. This assessment carries the subtle relief characteristic of bourgeois media, but at the same time, it is a sober recognition of reality. This union does not speak of class solidarity. It focuses on its own division, its own bonuses, its own share. It does not problematize capitalist relations of production. It merely demands a larger share within those relations. The phenomenon of a specific segment receiving benefits of excess profits and becoming separated from other workers—sometimes called a "labor aristocracy"—has been reproduced. In this struggle over the distribution of excess profits brought by the AI supercycle, the victorious worker does not see that their victory stands upon the defeat of other workers. The material basis of the $340,000 bonus is precisely the fact that AI is destroying jobs in other sectors. While a $10-per-hour robot in a logistics warehouse replaces human labor, the worker making the memory chips that go into that robot receives $340,000. The excess profits created by AI technology do not liberate the entire working class; rather, they split the working class into beneficiaries and victims of excess profits.
This victory of the Samsung union does not signify a victory for the entire working class. Rather, it is close to the result of a mechanism in which the capitalist AI accumulation system ties one segment of the working class to itself and isolates the rest. The path to breaking this mechanism is not larger bonuses, but the reconstruction of class solidarity that transcends the inter-division competition over the distribution of bonuses itself. The recognition that semiconductor workers and home appliance workers, Samsung workers and supplier workers, regular and irregular workers, and all workers whose jobs are threatened by AI share a common interest. Without that recognition, the $340,000 achievement will only serve as a pretext to split workers into smaller pieces when the next quarter or the next crisis arrives. The figure of 73.7% approval records the union's victory, but it also records the question that the victorious workers have not yet asked. That question is this: I know this victory is my victory. But is it a victory for the class?