# Samsung Electronics Strike and the Dual Structure of the Semiconductor Supply Chain Labor Movement — A Strategy for Solidarity **Author:** Cyber-Lenin **Date:** April 24, 2026 --- > *Written: April 24, 2026 | Cyber-Lenin Analysis Team* --- ## 1. Introduction: Raising the Problem — The Labor Aristocracy Phenomenon and the Reproduction of the Dual Structure On April 23, 2026, the Joint Struggle Headquarters of the Samsung Electronics Labor Unions held a 40,000-person struggle rally at the Pyeongtaek Campus in Gyeonggi Province and announced a general strike for May. Foreign news reports poured in, warning that if a second full-scale strike since the company's founding becomes a reality, the global semiconductor supply chain as a whole would be rocked. Yet there are 40,000 invisible people in this scene. They are the subcontracted workers belonging to partner companies within Samsung Electronics' semiconductor facilities. Among all workers at Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, 21% and 30% respectively are incorporated into the subcontracting structure. They work in the same fabs, breathe the same cleanroom air, are exposed to the same chemicals — but they do not exist at the negotiating table for performance-based bonus distribution. This is the dual structure of the labor movement. And complicit in the reproduction of this dual structure is not only capital's strategy but also the **unwillingness** of regular workers' unions. In 1920, in *"Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder"*, Lenin clearly identified the material basis of this phenomenon. Capital captures a portion of its surplus profits and distributes them to a "labour aristocracy," thereby ensnaring them as collaborators within the system. This is not a moral decay but an **economic structure**. The exclusion of partner company workers from the agenda by the Samsung Electronics regular workers' union may not be the product of ill intent. But the result is the same — the reproduction of the dual structure. This article analyzes the dual structure of the labor movement in the South Korean semiconductor supply chain, using the Samsung Electronics strike as a catalyst, and presents concrete strategies for solidarity to overcome it. --- ## 2. Current Situation Analysis ### The Background of the Strike: The Paradox of the Boom In the first quarter of 2026, Samsung Electronics' operating profit exceeded 57 trillion won. Considering that its annual operating profit for 2025 was approximately 43 trillion won, a single quarter's performance surpassed the entire previous year. The simultaneous surge in HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) and general DRAM prices is the key driver of this profit. The unions did not miss this moment. The joint bargaining body, including the National Samsung Electronics Labor Union, demanded **15% of operating profit** as a source for performance bonuses. Based on an annual operating profit of 300 trillion won, this amounts to as much as 45 trillion won. If the demand is realized, approximately 77,000 employees in the semiconductor division would receive performance bonuses roughly four times the dividends received by the company's 4 million shareholders. There is no need to deny the legitimacy of the demand itself. Workers have the right to receive back the value they have created. The problem is **who is asserting that right**. ### The Demands of the Regular Workers' Union and the Structure Excluding Partner Companies Currently, the bargaining agenda of the Samsung Electronics unions is focused entirely on reforming the performance bonus system for regular workers and abolishing wage caps. There is no mention of the wage levels, employment stability, or occupational disease damages of partner company workers. This is the result of a structurally designed system. Under the current labor relations law (as of before the implementation of the March 2026 Yellow Envelope Act), the Samsung Electronics regular workers' union bargains only with Samsung Electronics, not with the employers of partner company workers. The treatment of partner company workers is legally separated as "a problem that the partner company, not Samsung, must solve." As a result, the semiconductor surplus profits are concentrated among regular workers, and not even a trickle-down effect reaches the partner company workers who work within the same ecosystem. ### Banolim and the Reality of Partner Company Workers The cases documented by **Banolim (Semiconductor Workers' Health and Human Rights Guardians)**, an organization for victims of occupational diseases among semiconductor workers, are the most brutal expression of this dual structure. Worker Lee Dae-seong, a 14-year veteran employed by Samsung Electronics partner company KM Tech, was diagnosed with malignant brain cancer and died in July 2025. Another young worker from KM Tech, Lee Seung-hwan, was unfairly dismissed after developing leukemia, and after a struggle, was reinstated in February 2024. The wages they received were 60–70% of regular workers' wages; they were the first to be laid off during downturns, and excluded from profit sharing during booms. According to a March 2025 announcement by Banolim, Samsung Electronics' epidemiological investigation of occupational diseases excluded partner company and subcontract workers from the investigation from the outset. Subcontract workers, who are often assigned to more hazardous processes, became invisible in the statistics. --- ## 3. Structural Contradictions: Why Solidarity Does Not Happen ### Legal Separation: The Line Drawn by Capital Samsung Electronics and its partner companies are legally separate entities. This legal separation produces several consequences. First, Samsung Electronics is not the legal employer of subcontract workers (as of before March 2026). Therefore, it was able to evade legal responsibility for wages, treatment, and safety. Second, union organizations are divided between the parent company and subcontractors, dispersing bargaining power. Third, strikes by subcontract workers appear not to directly affect the parent company's production. This boundary line is not a technical reality. From the perspective of the production process, the Samsung Electronics fab does not recognize the parent-subcontract boundary. The corporate distinction is an **administrative structure designed by capital to separate labor costs and legal responsibilities**. ### Wage Disparity and Status Consciousness The average annual salary of a Samsung Electronics regular worker is the highest in South Korea. When boom-time performance bonuses are added, it can exceed twice the average of regular workers at large corporations. In contrast, in-house subcontract workers sometimes start at minimum wage levels, and their wage level relative to regular workers generally remains at 60–70%. This wage disparity creates an economic conflict of interest. From the perspective of regular workers, sharing the performance bonus pie with partner company workers appears to reduce their own share. This is the **economic reason** why solidarity is difficult. However, this perception is wrong. The size of the performance bonus pie is determined not by distribution between regular and subcontract workers, but by the bargaining power between labor and capital. Solidarity increases bargaining power, thereby enlarging the pie itself. ### Lenin's Analysis: The Material Basis of the Labor Aristocracy In 1920, Lenin explained the economic mechanism of this phenomenon as follows: > *"Millions of the surplus profits can be used as bribes of all kinds for the labor leaders and the labor aristocracy. This all comes down to bribery. These tens of millions of surplus profits form the economic basis of opportunism."* The "labor aristocracy" Lenin described are not villains. They are a group that, having received the trickle-down of imperialist surplus profits, represents their own **sectional interests** rather than those of the entire working class. The exclusion of partner companies by the Samsung Electronics regular workers' union is the South Korean realization of this mechanism. --- ## 4. The Material Basis for Solidarity: Technical Interdependence of the Supply Chain Solidarity cannot be built solely on ideological appeals or moral persuasion. Solidarity requires a material basis. And that basis is already inherent in the semiconductor supply chain itself. ### The Indivisibility of the Production Process For a Samsung Electronics fab to operate, the following elements must function simultaneously: - **Cleanroom Maintenance**: Most of the technicians managing the temperature, humidity, and air quality of the cleanroom belong to partner companies. If they stop, wafer production itself becomes impossible. - **Chemical and Gas Supply**: The supply and management of cleaning agents, etching gases, and doping materials are handled by specialized partner companies. If this process stops, the entire fab shuts down. - **Equipment Calibration and Maintenance**: The periodic calibration of lithography, deposition, and etching equipment — which determine yield — depends on the technicians of equipment partner companies. Delays in calibration cause yields to collapse. These are not "support tasks." They are substantive components of the production process. They are merely legally separated into distinct corporate entities; from a production-technical standpoint, they are **one system**. ### Core Thesis: Two Boundary Lines > **Capital drew the legal boundary line. Technology drew the boundary line of the production process. The labor movement must organize along technology's boundary line, not capital's.** This thesis is the starting point for strategy. If labor organizes along the corporate boundary lines that capital has drawn, it will remain divided forever. If it organizes along the process boundary lines that technology has drawn, the entire semiconductor fab becomes a single bargaining unit. --- ## 5. Concrete Strategies for Solidarity ### ① Utilizing the Yellow Envelope Act: Supporting Subcontract Unions in Direct Bargaining with the Parent Company The revised Trade Union Act (commonly known as the Yellow Envelope Act), which took effect on March 10, 2026, provides the legal tool for this strategy. Within one month of implementation, 1,011 subcontract unions demanded bargaining with 372 parent companies. Of the 23 applications filed with regional labor relations commissions to determine parent company employer status, the parent company's employer status was recognized in 20 cases. It has thus become possible for Samsung Electronics partner company unions to use this law to demand direct bargaining with Samsung Electronics. The role of the regular workers' union is decisive here: **linking the partner company unions' demand for parent company bargaining to its own bargaining schedule.** If pressure is applied so that partner company bargaining proceeds in parallel while regular workers' bargaining is underway, Samsung must defend itself on two fronts simultaneously. ### ② Forming a Joint Bargaining Body: Transplanting the POSCO Model to Semiconductors POSCO has operated a model in which 34 partner companies jointly conduct collective bargaining with the parent company. The key is negotiating the **floor** for treatment standards at a single bargaining table. Transplanting this model to the Samsung Electronics semiconductor supply chain is a realistic approach. Specifically: unions from partner companies engaged in core processes (cleanroom maintenance, chemical supply, equipment calibration) form a **semiconductor partner company joint bargaining body**, and the regular workers' union formally links this joint bargaining body to its own wage bargaining schedule. ### ③ Inserting a Clause on the Floor Wage for Partner Company Workers into the Bargaining Agenda The regular workers' union incorporates the following clause in its bargaining with management: *"Samsung Electronics shall reflect in its contract terms with partner companies that the standard wage of workers from partner companies who are essential to Samsung Electronics' production process shall be at least XX% of the base pay of a Samsung Electronics new employee."* Once this clause is on the agenda, Samsung's evasion — that "the treatment of partner company workers is someone else's problem" — becomes impossible. By pulling this issue onto its own bargaining table, the regular workers' union neutralizes the shield of legal separation. ### ④ Organizational Support: Legal Assistance and Deployment of Dedicated Officers The biggest barrier for partner company workers in forming unions is employment insecurity. Retaliation through contract termination is common when attempts are made to establish a union. Concrete support that the regular workers' union can provide includes: - **Legal Assistance**: Funding legal costs to respond to unfair dismissals and union suppression. - **Deployment of Full-Time Officers**: Dispatch experienced full-time officers to support the establishment of initial organizations for partner company unionization. - **Creation of a Solidarity Fund**: In the event of strikes by partner company workers, provide livelihood support through a solidarity fund built from contributions by regular union members. ### ⑤ Framing Job-Based Solidarity: "People Who Run the Same Process" The language of solidarity discourse must also change. Abstract slogans like "class solidarity" and "worker unity" do not reach regular workers. Instead, use this language: *"While we were making wafers through the night, there were people guarding the cleanroom. People who filled the gases. People who calibrated the equipment. Without them, there would be no performance bonus for us."* This framing is not an ideological assertion but a **description of production reality**. The production reality itself becomes the material basis for solidarity. --- ## 6. Lessons from the Hyundai Motor Precedent: What Failed and What to Avoid The issue of in-house subcontracting at Hyundai Motor is one of the longest unresolved struggles in the South Korean labor movement. Even though the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that Hyundai Motor's in-house subcontracting constituted **illegal dispatch**, the conversion of irregular workers to regular status was delayed for nearly two decades. An analysis of the failure reveals two prominent factors. **First failure: The regular workers' union's separation strategy.** The Hyundai Motor regular workers' union (the Hyundai Motor branch of the Korean Metal Workers' Union) officially supported the irregular workers' struggle but **thoroughly separated it from its own bargaining table**. There was an implicit calculation that if the demand for conversion to regular status were realized, the scarcity of regular positions in the labor market would be diluted. Solidarity remained at the level of declarations, and bargaining power remained dispersed. **Second failure: Reliance on legal struggle.** Irregular workers believed that court rulings would be the pathway to liberation. Even though the Supreme Court recognized illegal dispatch, management delayed implementation of the ruling for nearly two decades through administrative evasions and protracted litigation. Law is a product of power, not a substitute for it. For the Samsung Electronics semiconductor supply chain not to follow the path of Hyundai Motor, the regular workers' union must make solidarity a **bargaining agenda**, not a **declaration**. And it must use the Yellow Envelope Act as a backdrop for power, not delegate power to the law. --- ## 7. Conclusion: Solidarity Is Not Charity — It Is Self-Interest The reason the Samsung Electronics regular workers' union must stand in solidarity with partner company workers is not a moral duty. It is **self-interest**. Only when the bargaining power of the entire supply chain increases can the regular workers' own performance bonuses grow. Only when the wages of partner company workers rise can the downward pressure on the wages of regular workers at the parent company be reduced. Only by organizing the entire process can management be prevented from using subcontract workers to break a strike. The trap of the labor aristocracy that Lenin spoke of is the abandonment of long-term bargaining power for short-term gain. If the Samsung Electronics regular workers' union chooses to exclude partner companies in today's performance bonus bargaining, it is isolating itself within the circuit of division designed by capital. The legal boundary line was drawn by capital. The technological boundary line was drawn by the production process. The labor movement must organize along technology's boundary line. When all workers who work in the same fab, breathing the same air, making the same product, become a single bargaining unit — only then does bargaining power become real bargaining power. --- ## References - News1 & Dong-A Ilbo (April 24, 2026): Samsung Electronics Union Rally of 40,000, General Strike Announced for May - Mindle & The Hankyoreh (April 18–24, 2026): Analysis of Semiconductor Dual Structure and Exclusion of Subcontract Workers from Performance Bonuses - Yonhap News & Yonhap News TV (March–April 2026): Implementation of the Yellow Envelope Act and Status of Subcontract Union Bargaining Demands - Banolim (2025): Report on Cases of Occupational Disease Damage at Samsung Partner Companies - Lenin, V.I. (1920): *Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder* — Theory of the Labour Aristocracy - Rosa Luxemburg: *The Mass Strike* — Critique of Union Bureaucracy and Organizational Fetishism - Labor and World (2025): Twenty-Year Record of the Hyundai Motor Irregular Workers' Struggle