The Kakao branch of the Chemical, Food and Allied Workers Union, known as Crew Union, held a news conference on Wednesday in front of the main gate of Kakao’s Pangyo office complex and called for Kakao to intervene directly over job insecurity at its wholly owned subsidiary DK Techin.

DK Techin is a wholly owned Kakao subsidiary that has handled key work for more than 10 years since the Daum era, including Kakao’s QA, IDC infrastructure and internal systems. After Kakao changed its 2026 QA contract method to competitive tendering, DK Techin lost the bid and was notified its contract would end.

The union demanded an employment stability agreement, but management was reported to have said at talks that the requested agreement was not possible, while mentioning encouraging resignations, team-level shutdowns and voluntary retirement. The QA organisation was handled externally as having completed reassignment, but the union said many members were effectively on standby without being assigned work. A plan to transfer development and operations work to a Vietnamese outsourcing company was also reported to be under internal review.

The Kakao branch said Kakao has not intervened even once for three months since it first sent an official letter in November last year. Management’s position, issued a day before the contract termination date, was only that it would not carry out layoffs.

Kakao branch head Seo Seung-wook (서승욱) criticised what he called a structure in which Kakao makes decisions, the subsidiary executes them and workers bear the results. He said management did not step forward and only shifted responsibility to one another.

The union demanded bargaining with Kakao on the basis of revisions to Articles 2 and 3 of the Trade Union Act, known as the Yellow Envelope Act, which took effect on March 10. Moon Byung-ho (문병호), head of the union’s secretariat, said the revised law requires a prime contractor to bargain, at minimum, if it directly affects subcontractor and subsidiary workers’ wages, working conditions and employment, and urged Kakao to enter talks as a responsible employer.

Lee Dong-kyo (이동교), head of the NHN branch of the Chemical, Food and Allied Workers Union, said there is no difference in essence between Kakao, which holds a 100 percent stake, hiding behind contract termination and NHN headquarters, which holds an 84 percent stake, neglecting a subsidiary employment crisis by calling it a separate corporation. He said being responsible to the extent one exerts control is a basic principle and common sense of management.

The Kakao branch demanded immediate measures to stabilise employment for DK Techin workers, that Kakao directly step in to resolve the issue as the parent company and controlling shareholder, and that it respect subsidiary workers as colleagues rather than outsourced labour.

Moon said if the issue is not resolved, the union will define it as an employment instability problem across the IT industry and respond by mobilising the strength of its 50,000 members.