A senior Samsung Electronics official reportedly raised the idea of splitting the company in two at a recent government-industry meeting in a room full of government officials, while complaining about workers strike.

Samsung is facing what is probably the biggest workers strike, and talks of a semiconductor spin-off have allegedly surfaced in a meeting with the Korean government, as Korea’s MoneyToday (now deleted, via Jukan) reported.

The union, centered on Samsung’s Device Solutions division, is demanding 15 percent of this year’s operating profit as performance pay, and the appliance workers want the same treatment.

The official’s reported words were almost plaintive: we can’t match semiconductor compensation in the home appliance segment, yet this is what we’re fighting over.

Then, in the same breath, he reportedly acknowledged a spin-off would damage shareholder value and asked the government to take a flexible view on the matter.

Samsung has 4 to 5 million shareholders. Any formal spin-off proposal would hit them, and legal hurdles layer on top. Keeping DS and DX divisions under one roof purely because separation is inconvenient is a strategy, just not a good one.

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