The NHN branch of the Chemical, Fiber and Food Workers’ Union held a rally outside NHN’s Pangyo headquarters and condemned job insecurity across the group and what it called headquarters’ shirking of responsibility.

On Tuesday, the union branch held a rally titled “NHN Group Employment Stability Struggle Rally” in front of the Play Museum on Daewangpangyo-ro in Bundang-gu, Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province.

According to the union, NHN has repeated business closures, encouraged resignations and group redeployments since late 2023. NHN Edu’s Iamschool service is set to end in October 2025, and the shutdown was announced. After that, it carried out redeployments, but the pass rate stayed at around 20%. The union said a process amounting to dismissals began from Tuesday. At NHN headquarters, about 70 workers in business-closure units including the NSC and NOW development team are being forced into redeployment procedures equivalent to new hiring, it said.

The union called the company’s actions between Feb. 26 and 27 an outright deception. It said NHN Edu expressed willingness at wage talks on Feb. 26 to join a tripartite employment-stability consultative body involving NHN, NHN Edu and the union. But it said that a day later, on Feb. 27, the company notified Iamschool service workers of voluntary retirement and sent an official letter to the workers’ representative on talks over staffing adjustments for managerial reasons.

Lee Dong-gyo (이동교), head of the NHN union branch, criticised what he called a practice of “offering a hand to negotiate in front, while wielding the blade of layoffs behind,” calling it deception not only toward the union but toward workers who have worked diligently.

He also pointed to what he said was a breach of a collective agreement rule requiring redeployment to be completed within three months. He said the company notified workers of encouraged resignations after about a month, and said it had unilaterally trampled an agreement reached between labour and management.

The union criticised NHN, which it called the de facto parent company with an 84% stake, for evading responsibility by citing corporate separation.

Park Young-jun (박영준), head of the Seoul metropolitan branch, said the company has authority when it shrinks business and influence when it cuts staff, but hides behind the claim that it is not the direct employer when asked to take responsibility for employment stability.

Multiple unions in the IT industry joined the rally in solidarity, including branches at Hancom, Netmarble and NCSoft.

Lee Hae-mi (이해미), head of the Netmarble union branch, said “quiet restructuring” is spreading across the IT industry. She said it uses labels such as redeployment, standby orders and organisational reshuffles, but in practice functions as a move to reduce headcount.

Song Ga-ram (송가람), head of the NCSoft union branch, also strongly criticised a Pangyo practice of pushing employees out by citing poor performance in specific product lines.

The union also demanded the company withdraw NHN Edu’s immediate layoff notice and voluntary retirement plan, have NHN headquarters directly join the tripartite employment-stability consultative body, implement efforts to avoid de facto dismissals, comply with the collective agreement, and restructure businesses without layoffs while guaranteeing employment in full.

NHN said NHN Edu decided to end the service based on a judgment that maintaining it was impossible due to accumulated operating losses and limits to growth in the education platform market. It said NHN Edu will communicate faithfully with members during the staff adjustment process and will thoroughly comply with applicable laws and regulations.