Samsung Offers Chip Workers $340,000 Bonuses as 48,000 Employees Back Tentative Strike Deal
Updated
Updated · The Verge · May 22
Samsung Offers Chip Workers $340,000 Bonuses as 48,000 Employees Back Tentative Strike Deal
3 articles · Updated · The Verge · May 22
Summary
$340,000 average annual bonuses emerged as the key detail in Samsung’s tentative labor deal, with some memory-chip employees on roughly $50,000 base pay eligible for as much as $416,000.
The package gives all semiconductor staff a cash bonus worth 50% of annual salary and sets aside 10.5% of operating profit for stock-based awards after workers threatened an 18-day strike over bonus caps.
Samsung split 40% of the stock-bonus pool across the whole chip division and reserved the rest for the memory unit, rejecting the union’s push to spread more of the payout evenly.
The terms still appear favorable to Samsung because payouts remain below SK Hynix’s, much of the award is in stock rather than cash, and payments depend on profit targets being met.
Union members still must vote on the agreement, though a union leader told Reuters he expects approval, closing a dispute fueled by Samsung’s AI-driven chip profit surge.