The Kakao branch of the Koren Federation of Chemical and Textile, and Food Workers Unions announced Wednesday all five affiliates — Kakao, Kakao Pay, Kakao Enterprise, DKTechin and XLGames — backed the strike in ballots that closed by 11 a.m.
The announcement came at a rally in front of Pangyo Station, just south of Seoul, where the company is headquartered.
"All five entities passed the vote in favor, and now that we have secured the legal right to industrial action, we will share our plans for the fight ahead," a union spokesperson announced.
The dispute reached the strike stage after mediation talks at the Gyeonggi Regional Labor Relations Commission collapsed last week for four affiliates, while a separate session for the headquarters was postponed.
At the heart of the standoff is Kakao's performance bonus framework.
The company paid out bonuses ranging from 3 to 9 percent of annual salary in February after posting record earnings last year, but the union is pushing for a structured payout tied to a fixed share of operating profit, alongside stock options for long-tenured staff.
The union's grievances have been compounded by Kakao's sale of AXZ, the operator of legacy portal Daum, to AI startup Upstage — a deal the union has condemned as a reversal of earlier promises on employment security.
The Kakao vote lands amid a broader reckoning over pay across South Korea's technology backbone.
A strike involving some 50,000 Samsung Electronics workers is set to begin Thursday after wage talks broke down, with the union demanding performance bonuses equivalent to 15 percent of operating profit and the removal of payout caps.
The pressure traces back to SK Hynix, which scrapped its bonus ceiling in September 2025 and tied payouts to 10 percent of operating profit — a benchmark that has since triggered escalating demands from Samsung Biologics, Hyundai Motor and LG Uplus unions, some seeking as much as 30 percent.
Industry watchers warn that if such fixed bonus practices spread from semiconductors into the wider IT sector, companies may lose the flexibility to weather shifting business cycles — a prospect that puts Kakao's coming days at the center of a far larger debate.
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