Naver Union Renews Call for Integrated Bargaining Across Affiliates, Holds HQ Lobby Rally

Management: "We have no authority to determine affiliates' working conditions"

The Naver branch of the Korean Chemical, Textile and Food Workers' Union of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions held a “Integrated Bargaining, Day of Action” rally on the first-floor lobby of Naver's headquarters, “1784,” in Bundang-gu, Seongnam, on the 21st. Photo provided by the Naver union.

The Naver union held a rally at the company’s headquarters, again urging management to agree to bargaining.

The Naver branch of the Korean Chemical, Textile and Food Workers’ Union, affiliated with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, said it held a rally titled “Integrated Bargaining, Day of Action” on the first-floor lobby of Naver’s headquarters, “1784,” in Bundang-gu, Seongnam, on October 21.

About 200 union members from Naver and its affiliates attended the rally. They denounced management for failing to post notice of the union’s bargaining request two months after it was submitted and called on the company to agree to integrated bargaining.

On August 20, the Naver union held a “2026 Integrated Bargaining Proclamation Ceremony” and announced its bargaining demands, which cover 15 affiliated companies. The demands set out five key priorities: improving company-wide integrated management processes; improving working conditions; creating a safe and healthy workplace; providing welfare support to strengthen employees’ capabilities; and building infrastructure for union activities across the company.

The union then sent two more official letters, on September 3 and October 1, urging the company to begin integrated bargaining. But the union criticized management for still not posting notice of the bargaining request two months on, saying the company maintains that it “is not in a position to exercise actual and specific control over or make decisions on the working conditions of affiliated companies.”

On October 2, the union filed an application for corrective action with the Gyeonggi Regional Labor Relations Commission over the failure to post notice of its integrated bargaining request. It plans to attend an in-person hearing on October 22. The union is also organizing an internal petition drive calling for integrated bargaining among employees of all affiliates.

“The company repeatedly engages in a deeply dysfunctional and inefficient process: it does not put forward even a proposal until an agreement is reached at headquarters, then all the affiliates finalize agreements using the same wording in barely a month,” said Choi Changhun, a bargaining committee member at Naver Cloud. “Common issues that the parent company actually decides, such as labor-cost budgets and performance-based compensation standards, should be addressed in the main bargaining, while circumstances specific to each affiliate should be addressed in supplementary bargaining.”

Oh Seyoon, head of the Naver branch, said, “The actions of the union members gathered here today and the voices from the workplace reflected in our petition drive are the clearest evidence of just how urgently we, the people directly involved, want integrated bargaining. We hope the Gyeonggi Regional Labor Relations Commission will clearly recognize Naver’s responsibility as the real employer, hidden behind the formal corporate identities, and demonstrate that the law is alive and at work in the workplace.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.