Samsung Workers Take Their Fight to Times Square

A 15-Second Ad With a Loud Message

On the morning of the 5th, a 15-second video began looping on a Times Square video wall every 35 minutes around the clock. It carried two lines: GREAT PRODUCTS BEGIN WITH PEOPLE, and WE ARE STILL HERE.

The ads were paid for by the Samsung Electronics labor union Donghaeng, representing roughly 100,000 workers in the company’s Device Experience (DX) division—the division responsible for smartphones, foldables, wearables, and other consumer electronics. Donghaeng chose one of the most visible advertising spaces on the planet to make a point that has been simmering inside Samsung for months: the DX division’s workers feel squeezed, shortchanged, and increasingly irrelevant to the people who run the company.

Samsung is a corporation that practically defines South Korea’s economy. Its semiconductor division, DS, has been riding a memory chip upcycle. Its consumer electronics division, DX, has posted weakening profitability. The labor dispute between the two divisions is, at surface level, a compensation argument. But the Times Square ad reframes it as something far more consequential—a challenge to the governance model that lets a single family sit atop Asia’s most valuable tech company while deciding which worker bloc gets rewarded and which gets left behind.

The Core Dispute

Donghaeng’s complaint is structural. Samsung and its main union reached a wage agreement covering roughly 100,000 employees, but the DX division’s share was significantly lower than the allocation for the semiconductor (DS) division. The gap is not marginal. Union representatives describe it as disproportionate to the relative contribution and hardship each division faces.

This is not new information. Since at least August, when Donghaeng held a public demonstration accusing management of failure in running the DX division, the union has been building its case. It escalated in May when Donghaeng withdrew from the joint bargaining table, arguing that DX workers were being excluded from the agreement. The union has also demanded transparency on whether employee personal information was leaked in connection with a prior incident in which the union compiled a blacklist-like roster of 100,000 workers’ union membership status—a maneuver that raises uncomfortable questions about surveillance and retaliation within one of Korea’s largest workplaces.

The Timing Problem

Skeptics on all sides have a point. Donghaeng participated as part of the joint bargaining team for five months starting in December, yet never formally raised DX-specific compensation or stock allocation as a bargaining item until after the agreement was reached. The union quit the table in May citing exclusion, but critics note it never actually brought a DX compensation proposal to the negotiating table either. The Times Square ad, coming after the fact, reads to some observers as theatrics rather than strategy.

Samsung management is unlikely to be moved by an ad in Manhattan. Collective bargaining is concluded. The dispute has moved from negotiation to public pressure—and the union’s next move, beginning the 18th, is a series of protests and solo demonstrations near CEO Lee Jae-yong’s residence in Yongsang-gu, Seoul.

That sequence matters. The shift from Times Square to Lee’s doorstep signals a union that has exhausted institutional leverage and is now willing to target the person who effectively controls the company’s destiny.

Why Times Square?

Picking Times Square is not arbitrary. Samsung DX products—Galaxy phones, tablets, wearables—are sold globally. The advertisement places a Korean labor dispute in the visual language of American consumer culture, turning Samsung’s own brand imagery against the company’s governance choices. It is a message aimed at international observers, investors, and shareholders who may not otherwise follow Korean labor developments closely.

The symbolism cuts both ways. For Samsung’s global brand, a labor dispute playing out on a New York billboard is uncomfortable optics. For a company that has faced repeated governance scrutiny over its complex ownership structure—where the Lee family exerts control through cross-shareholdings far beyond its equity stake—the ad reinforces a narrative that has followed Samsung for years: family control trumps worker interests.

What It Reveals About Chaebol Governance

Samsung’s corporate structure is a defining feature of Korean capitalism. The Lee family controls the company through a web of affiliated firms and cross-shareholdings that concentrate voting power well above their economic ownership. This arrangement has drawn criticism from institutional investors, governance reform advocates, and foreign analysts for generations. Labor disputes like Donghaeng’s provide a concrete window into how that structure operates in practice—not in annual reports, but in wage sheets.

The DX-DS pay gap is a governance issue. It reflects priority-setting at the top, not market forces alone. When the semiconductor division captures the lion’s share of compensation gains during a chip upcycle, and consumer electronics workers receive far less, the decision is not made by anonymous market dynamics. It is made by people in rooms where the Lee family’s influence is felt directly.

Who Wins, Who Loses

Samsung wins if the ad fades into news cycles and the union returns to quiet grievance procedures. The company has weathered far worse public pressure. Its stock has performed well. Its semiconductor business is dominant. A 15-second video on a Times Square screen does not move earnings.

Donghaeng loses if the dispute remains a symbolic gesture with no path to material gain. The union already walked away from the bargaining table without securing a formal DX compensation proposal. The blacklist controversy adds another layer of complexity—any investigation into leaked member data could strengthen the union’s moral case but also expose internal vulnerabilities.

Lee Jae-yong loses reputationally, if not operationally. Each public labor dispute reinforces the image of a chaebol heir presiding over a company where workers are interchangeable parts rather than stakeholders. That narrative has long-term consequences for Samsung’s ability to attract and retain talent, particularly among younger workers in Korea who are increasingly sensitive to workplace governance issues.

What Happens Next

The immediate future holds protests near Lee’s residence starting the 18th. Whether these translate into renewed bargaining pressure depends on several factors: whether the blacklist investigation yields results, whether the union can rebuild credibility with its own membership, and whether Samsung sees value in reopening talks to defuse public scrutiny.

The broader implication is for Korean corporate governance. Donghaeng’s Times Square ad is unusual but not isolated. Korean labor unions have grown more assertive in recent years, and the chaebol model faces sustained pressure from activists, institutional investors, and regulators. The Samsung dispute is a case study in what happens when a union with 100,000 members decides that domestic institutions are insufficient to press its case—and takes the argument global.

Whether this produces concrete change in DX workers’ compensation is uncertain. What is clearer is that the gap between Samsung’s global brand ambition and its domestic labor governance continues to widen—and that workers are finding new venues to exploit it.