The National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) has suspended planned strike action after a tentative agreement with the company was reached.

Negotiations between the two parties initially collapsed on Wednesday (May 20), but another round of talks led by Kim Young-hoon, South Korea’s minister for labor and employment, led to strike action being postponed.

Unionized workers at Samsung’s South Korean facilities voted in March to launch an 18-day general strike after talks with the company broke down. Employees have been asking for improved transparency with regard to how performance-based bonuses are calculated, in addition to the removal of a cap on bonuses and a seven percent wage increase.

Labor unions have been asking that workers within the company’s chip division receive a share of 15 percent of its operating profits, in addition to the removal of the 50 percent bonus cap and a seven percent pay increase. In April, Samsung reportedly offered workers a 10 percent profit allocation, a 6.2 percent pay increase, and additional benefits such as preferential mortgage loans, a deal which the union rejected.

The NSEU said it will ask union members to vote on the wage agreement between May 22 – 27. However, speaking after the conclusion of the talks, Kim cautioned that there were still outstanding issues to be resolved, noting that the union had made concessions in order to get to this point.

Reuters reported that Samsung had agreed to abolish the bonus cap and link bonuses to operating profits, although the allocation would be the equivalent of 10.5 percent of operating profits, rather than the 15 percent the union had been asking for.

The company will partially fund the special bonuses with company stock over a ten-year period, provided the chip division exceeds operating profit targets of $133.65bn from 2026 - 2028, and $66.4bn from 2029 – 2035.

In April, Samsung reported Q1 2026 revenue of $91bn, up 69 percent year-on-year, with its $39bn quarterly operating profit setting a new company record and exceeding the company’s FY25 full-year profits of $30bn.

The growth was primarily a result of increased sales across Samsung’s Device Solutions (DS) Division, with the ongoing demand for memory hardware credited as the main driving force behind the record-breaking figures.