Samsung Electronics has signed its first-ever collective agreement with a group of its labor unions more than a year after its de facto  leader pledged to scrap a union-free policy established decades ago.

During a ceremony held at the company’s manufacturing center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province on Thursday, Samsung Electronics President Kim Hyun-suk and representatives of its four labor unions inked a 95-clause agreement on unions’ rights, which includes assurances that its members be given allowances to attend union-related activities. 

The collective agreement contains the outcome of over 30 rounds of negotiations held in the past nine months since last November. Last month, the two sides agreed on a tentative deal, which the biggest of the four unions approved with 96 percent of its members voting in favor. 

The move comes some 15 months after Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong pledged in a public address to abolish the company’s longstanding practice of prohibiting labor unions, which some have attributed as a key factor in the the tech giant’s consistent profits.

The ceremony also precedes the Samsung scion's scheduled release on Friday. Lee, who was serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence in an influence peddling scandal involving former President Park Geun-hye, was included on the Justice Ministry’s list of special parolees ahead of Liberation Day, which falls on Sunday.