Samsung union members begin vote on tentative agreement

Members of Samsung Electronics’ labor unions began mobile voting on a tentative agreement reached between their leadership and management, the final phase before the two sides’ labor dispute is settled. According to the unions, approximately 87,000 members of Samsung Electronics Labor Union (SELU) and National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) began casting their votes on the tentative agreement at 2 p.m. Friday. The voting will continue for six days until 10 a.m. Wednesday. The tentative agreement will be finalized if a majority of union members eligible to vote participate in the ballot and more than half approve it. If the agreement fails to win majority support, it will be rejected and labor and management will have to go back to the negotiating table. The agreement, reached Wednesday just hours before the unions were to launch a general strike, centers on distributing part of the company’s operating profit to employees as performance bonuses. The bonus system consists of two categories. The first is Samsung’s existing overall performance incentive (OPI). The agreement states