A Naver spokesperson said Wednesday that the membership, secured late last year, should be read chiefly through the lens of industrial convergence rather than labor relations.
"This is a period when AI is accelerating connections across industries, and it should be seen as an effort to closely integrate with a variety of companies," the spokesperson said.
The KEF is a management-side organization that specializes in advising member firms on labor and personnel matters.
Experts say Naver's decision to join stands out because IT companies, long reliant on autonomous corporate cultures, had historically shown little interest in the federation's labor-management expertise.
The spokesperson confirmed the KEF enrollment but said the company was not aware of any link between the membership and the kind of forceful union activity seen recently at rival Kakao.
Industry accounts had tied the move to the amended trade union law known as the Yellow Envelope Act, which took effect in March and sharply broadens the liability of parent firms for subcontracted workers.
Naver sits atop a sprawling structure of subsidiaries and lower-tier affiliates, a web that the revised law brings into closer regulatory focus.
The company's union chapter, affiliated with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, has for years pressed headquarters to bargain directly over pay and welfare for workers at affiliated firms, and it plans to hold a ceremony on Aug. 20 declaring integrated bargaining across Naver group companies.
AJP Takeaways
• Naver has become the first South Korean IT company to join the Korea Enterprises Federation, the country's main management-side employers' body, confirming a membership secured late last year.
• The company played down suggestions that the move was a defensive response to union pressure, with a spokesperson framing it instead as an effort to integrate with other firms as AI accelerates cross-industry convergence.
• The membership comes as labor tensions build across Korea's tech sector, following Kakao's first-ever strike in June and ahead of a Naver union ceremony on Aug. 20 declaring integrated bargaining across group companies.
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