Suh Kyoung-ho
The author is an editorial writer of the JoongAng Ilbo.
“Comply with the Labor Standards Act. We are not machines. Do not let my death be in vain.”
Those were the cries of Jeon Tae-il, a 22-year-old tailor at Seoul’s Peace Market, before he set himself on fire in 1970 while holding a copy of Korea’s Labor Standards Act. His final reported words were simple: “I am hungry.”
Samsung Electronics' management negotiator Yeo Myung-koo, left, and Choi Seung-ho, right, head of the Samsung Electronics chapter of the Samsung Group United Union, pose for a photo at the Ministry of Employment and Labor office in Suwon, Gyeonggi, after signing a tentative wage agreement on May 20. [NEWS1]
The harsh labor conditions Jeon exposed through his death shocked Korean society. According to “A Single Spark” (1983), the biography written by late lawyer Cho Young-rae, Jeon struggled to study the Labor Standards Act on his own because of the law’s difficult Chinese-character terminology. He once lamented that things might have been easier “if only I had gone to college, or at least had a friend attending one.” His story inspired many university students to become the “college friends” of workers and participate in social activism.
The summer of 1987 brought another major turning point. After the June democracy movement won constitutional reform and direct presidential elections, labor protests spread rapidly between July and September. More than 3,300 labor disputes were recorded.
At demonstration sites in Ulsan, where Hyundai affiliates were concentrated, workers shouted demands such as “Let us grow our hair,” “Allow us to wear civilian clothes when commuting” and “Stop kicking us with steel-toed boots.” The slogans reflected the military-style labor discipline imposed at large industrial workplaces at the time. Many Koreans sympathized with workers asking for the right to live with dignity.
Today’s labor environment is fundamentally different.
In May, Samsung Electronics management and labor narrowly avoided a general strike by agreeing to an unprecedented performance bonus package. Under the agreement, 10.5 percent of business profits from the semiconductor division will be distributed as special management bonuses over the next decade without a fixed upper limit.
If Samsung Electronics posts 300 trillion won ($196.1 billion) in operating profit this year based on an exchange rate of 1,530 won to the dollar, employees in the memory chip division could reportedly receive bonuses worth as much as 600 million won before tax. Securities firms continue to raise earnings forecasts for Samsung Electronics over the next three years.
If those projections become reality, total compensation and bonuses for memory division employees over three years could exceed 2 billion won before tax, surpassing the average first-prize Lotto payout in Korea last year of 2.06 billion won.
The agreement raises several concerns. First, the system does not sufficiently reflect individual performance. Lee Byung-chull, who emphasized the principle of “putting talent first,” or late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee, who famously said that “one genius feeds tens of thousands,” would likely have struggled to imagine a structure in which everyone in a division receives similarly large payouts regardless of individual contribution.
Although framed as compensation tied to business performance, the agreement effectively guarantees a fixed portion of operating profits to workers. The impact is already spreading across industry, with unions at other companies reportedly beginning to demand a fixed percentage of operating profits as well.
A banner calling for the enactment of a support law for the fashion and garment industry hangs behind a statue of labor activist Jeon Tae-il on Jeon Tae-il Bridge in Jongno District, Seoul, on Nov. 13, 2025, the 55th anniversary of his death. [NEWS1]
Such arrangements could infringe upon shareholder rights while weakening resources needed for future growth, including research and development, capital investment and mergers and acquisitions. The trend could also deepen Korea’s dual labor structure between workers at large corporations and public companies on one side and employees at small firms and nonregular jobs on the other.
The widening gap in income and assets, already intensified by soaring housing prices and stock prices, could grow even larger. Such developments move Korea further away from President Lee Jae Myung’s vision of a more equal society.
Unlike during the eras of Jeon Tae-il and the labor struggles of 1987, workers at major corporations and public companies can no longer easily be described as society’s weak. Korea’s Constitution states that “no privileged class shall ever be established in any form.” It may now be time to ask whether the balance in Korean society has tilted too far toward organized labor.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
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