![\"Members](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/rcv.YNA.20260610.PYH2026061012930006100_P1.jpg\"\/ "\\"Kakao's")
Members of the Kakao labor union, who launched a partial strike, chant slogans in front of Kakao’s Pangyo Agit office in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, on the 10th. Yonhap News<\/p>\nMembers of the Kakao labor union, who launched a partial strike, chant slogans in front of Kakao’s Pangyo Agit office in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, on the 10th. Yonhap News<\/p>\n
As Kakao’s labor union staged the first strike since the company’s founding, foreign media analyzed that the labor-management conflict is expanding beyond wage issues into concerns over profit distribution and restructuring.<\/p>\n
Reuters reported Monday that Kakao’s union held a four-hour partial strike and rally in Pangyo, Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, demanding reform of the performance pay system and guarantees of employment stability. In particular, the news agency viewed the strike as an extension of growing discontent that, amid the global AI boom, technology companies are posting strong earnings while workers are not adequately sharing in those profits.<\/p>\n
Reuters also cited the recent case in which Samsung Electronics’ union secured an agreement linking semiconductor division bonuses to operating profit, analyzing that demands surrounding compensation systems are spreading across Korea’s labor sector as a whole.<\/p>\n
Bloomberg focused on executive compensation structures and restructuring issues as the backdrop to Kakao’s labor-management conflict. The outlet reported that the union is demanding a halt to spin-offs and business sales, along with guarantees of employment stability, and that it could consider a full-scale strike if negotiations make no progress. It pointed to profit distribution methods and employment insecurity, rather than wage increases themselves, as the core issues.<\/p>\n
What the foreign media commonly focused on was “how it is shared” rather than “how much is received.” Kakao’s union argues that while executives receive large compensation, ordinary employees do not sufficiently feel the effects of improved earnings. The union also opposes the company’s proposal to include restricted stock units (RSU) in performance pay, demanding reform of the compensation system centered on cash bonuses.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press placed significance on the fact that this strike took place at the operator of KakaoTalk, Korea’s largest messenger. While the likelihood of immediate service disruptions is low, the symbolism of a labor-management conflict being publicly expressed at Korea’s leading digital platform company is considered significant.<\/p>\n
Kakao’s union began the partial strike the previous day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Five entities participated: Kakao headquarters, Kakao Pay, Kakao Enterprise, DKTechin, and XLGames. According to the union, about 1,000 Kakao headquarters employees participated in the first strike. This represents about a quarter of the roughly 4,000 total headquarters employees. Across all Kakao entities, about 1,500 people are estimated to have joined the strike.<\/p>\n
The union is reportedly also preparing a second strike in the form of an “annual leave struggle,” in which members use their annual leave to halt work.<\/p>\n
Kakao’s labor and management currently remain unable to find common ground over the performance pay compensation structure. The two sides have differed over a plan to set bonuses at 13 to 14 percent of last year’s operating profit and whether to include a 5 million won RSU in performance pay. The union’s position is that RSU should be excluded from bonus calculations. Management, on the other hand, views the demand as potentially increasing its management burden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Members of the Kakao labor union, who launched a partial strike, chant slogans in front of Kakao’s Pangyo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[622],"tags":[827,8532,16194,831,28464,15325,4214,20943,13240],"class_list":["post-49039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kakao","tag-kakao","tag-kakao-labor-union","tag-kakao-strike","tag-kakaotalk","tag-korea-tech-labor","tag-performance-pay","tag-profit-sharing","tag-restricted-stock-units","tag-rsu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}