The two labor unions - one old and one new - of South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. are in discord ahead of their collective bargaining with the management after a decision by the established union group to leave out the new union from the negotiations.

According to industry sources on Wednesday, the Nationwide Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) announced recently that it will not include the Device eXperience (DX) Union in the group for collective bargaining and wage negotiations for 2023. The NSEU also said it filed a criminal complaint against Lee Song-yi, head of the DX Union, for violating the information protection act.

Since 2021, the NSEU has been negotiating on behalf of the four unions of Samsung Electronics by forming a bargaining group. It is the largest among the company’s unions with about 10,000 members.

The DX Union, in the meantime, is the company’s fifth and newest trade union launched in January this year. Lee and many of the members were active members of the NSEU before creating the new group.

The DX Union has been gaining ground among young employees, with the number of its members reaching more than 6,000.

The DX Union was created primarily because of the fatigue with the NSEU’s parent organization, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU). When the NSEU pressured the company by threatening not only a strike but even a boycott of Samsung Electronics products, many disenchanted employees switched to the DX Union.

The NSEU has been strongly criticizing the leadership of the DX Union. “Lee committed illegal acts such as stealing member IDs without permission when she was with the NSEU and even defamed members,” it claimed in an internal notice. “The entire leadership must be replaced for the DX Union to join the bargaining unit.”

The DX Union separately submitted its bargaining demand to the company.

By Oh Chan-jong and Choi Jieun

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]