Kakao's labour union will hold an in-house picket protest. The KakaoBank union will also join the picket after wage talks stalled and it received a decision from a labour commission to halt mediation, raising expectations that labour-management conflict in the group will spread.

Industry officials said on Tuesday that the Kakao branch of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions-affiliated National Chemical, Fiber and Food Industry Trade Union (Crew Union, hereafter the Kakao branch) plans to hold a picket protest at Kakao’s Agit in Pangyo, Seongnam, Gyeonggi province, at around 12 p.m., using the lunch break.

The picket will proceed on a voluntary basis for union members. Only lunchtime picketing is planned, with no additional action such as a separate rally or march, so the direct impact on work delays or operation of major services such as KakaoTalk and KakaoPay is expected to be limited.

KakaoBank union is joining the protest amid difficulties in wage talks. KakaoBank labour and management have failed to find common ground and have been undergoing mediation at the Gyeonggi Regional Labor Relations Commission. They also failed to narrow differences at a mediation meeting held at 1 p.m. on Sunday, and the commission ultimately decided to halt mediation. A decision to halt mediation is made when the labour commission judges that differences between labour and management are too large to continue mediation, after which the union can move to dispute action procedures such as a vote of union members. Still, the KakaoBank union plans to focus on Tuesday’s picket rather than immediately announcing a separate strike plan.

The Kakao branch’s latest collective action comes about three weeks after a "Logout Day" on June 29. Logout Day is a form of dispute action in which members stop working for one day by using annual leave or time off and log out of work systems, and the union said about 2,100 members from five affiliates participated, including Kakao, KakaoPay, Kakao Enterprise, DK Techin and XL Games. The company estimated actual participation at about 800, taking into account the usual number of employees on leave, showing a gap with the union’s tally.

The Kakao branch previously held a four-hour half-day partial strike on June 10. About 1,500 people took part based on the five affiliates, and it was the first strike at Kakao headquarters in 20 years.

The dispute began with collective bargaining over the performance bonus compensation system. Kakao labour and management have failed to narrow differences for about two months since talks broke down in May. The union is demanding payment of performance bonuses worth about 10 million won, equivalent to 13 to 14 percent of operating profit, while the company is maintaining that it is difficult to accept because the demand would be a burden on management.

The union has also raised issues including opacity in the criteria for performance compensation, job insecurity and management responsibility, and has demanded job stability and improvements to the compensation system. The Kakao branch said talks with the company are continuing. Still, with no clear common ground found since Logout Day and the KakaoBank union also receiving a decision to halt mediation, some expect labour-management conflicts at major Kakao affiliates could become prolonged.