The Rise of Royal Unions

The Samsung Electronics union’s demand for performance bonuses is not merely a wage negotiation dispute. It is a symbolic case showing that Korea’s labor market has already moved beyond the simple structure of “workers versus employers” and entered a stage of internal stratification and class division among workers themselves. Recently, post-dispute mediation between labor and management at Samsung Electronics ultimately broke down over differences regarding the method of calculating performance bonuses, and the union has been demanding an expansion of operating profit-linked bonuses. SK hynix, likewise, has become a benchmark for Samsung Electronics union demands due to its record-high bonus payouts.

Korea’s labor market is now divided into three tiers. At the top are unions at globally elite companies such as Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. These workers already enjoy high wages, stable employment, extensive benefits, and the advantages of world-class corporate brands. Even so, they effectively demand a portion of the company’s operating profit as though it were a guaranteed dividend. They are no longer “aristocratic unions” in the traditional sense. They are closer, quite literally, to “royal unions”: groups that demand a substantial share of corporate performance while bearing none of the burden of failed investments or management risk.

Below them are unions in the primary labor market, centered on large corporations and the public sector. These are the groups that have traditionally been called “aristocratic unions.” Based on protection for regular workers, high wages, strong bargaining power, and job security, they have long formed the upper tier within the labor market. In particular, the demands of public-sector unions are not paid from corporate profits but ultimately from taxpayers and public utility fees. If the structure in which the public bears the cost while a portion of organized labor reaps the benefits is repeated, that is not the protection of labor rights but the preservation of privilege under the banner of the public interest.

By contrast, workers in small and medium-sized enterprises, subcontractors, non-regular workers, and young job seekers in the secondary labor market are closer to “ordinary workers.” They do not have the option of demanding a certain percentage of operating profit as a bonus. Even when their companies earn profits, many must worry not about large bonuses but about unpaid wages and job insecurity. Unionization rates are low, and bargaining power is weak. The more that royal unions and aristocratic unions claim a larger share of the fruits of success, the narrower the doorway becomes for ordinary workers.

The problem is who is fueling this stratification. The labor movement has always spoken of solidarity and equality. But in reality, the stronger the union, the less likely it is to stand in solidarity with the weakest workers, and the more likely it is to seek to monopolize the excess profits of the company to which it belongs. The bonus demands of the Samsung Electronics and SK hynix unions reveal exactly this contradiction. Can a movement that speaks in the name of the rights and interests of all workers, while in practice maximizing the share of the top tier of workers, truly claim social legitimacy?

The demands of royal unions do not remain an internal corporate matter. Excessive compensation structures for regular workers at large firms can lead to pressure on subcontractor supply prices, reduced new hiring, greater automation pressure, higher consumer prices, and damage to shareholder value. A company is not a bonus-paying institution; it is an economic actor that must survive in global competition. The semiconductor industry must withstand massive upfront investment, technological risk, and business-cycle fluctuations. If unions insist on sharing profits in boom times while refusing responsibility for losses and failed investments in downturns, that is not distribution—it is privilege with rights but no responsibilities.

An even greater concern is the entrenchment of hierarchy among unions. The unions at Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are becoming “royalty,” while unions at large firms and in the public sector become “aristocrats,” and workers at small and medium-sized firms are left as “commoners.” In effect, unions that have criticized the dual structure of the labor market are instead deepening it into a triple structure. Ultimately, unions themselves are confirming who is encouraging status stratification and class division both across the labor market and among unions.

Pointing this out does not mean denying labor rights. Legitimate wage bargaining and performance-based compensation are necessary. But if labor rights are distorted into privilege, and bonus demands undermine both corporate sustainability and fairness across the labor market as a whole, society should criticize this. In particular, when unions at top-tier companies invoke vulnerability while attempting to monopolize the fruits of performance, the damage ultimately falls on the majority of workers who are not organized.

What is needed now is a change in perspective on labor reform. We must look not only at conflict between employers and workers, but squarely at the gap and structure of privilege within the working class itself. The Samsung Electronics bonus dispute raises the question of whether unions still stand with the weak, or whether they have become a new status group protecting the privileges of the upper tier of the labor market. The entrenched interests of royal unions and aristocratic unions should be reduced, while opportunities and mobility for workers at small and medium-sized enterprises, non-regular workers, and young workers should be expanded. The era of justifying privilege in the name of labor must come to an end. True fairness begins not by increasing the share of the strongest unions, but by expanding opportunities for the weakest workers.

Gwang yong Go

Policy Director, Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: 왕족노조의 출현

Author: Gwang yong Go

Date: 2026-05-15

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=press&pn=1&idx=28923