Following Samsung, SK hynix deals, unions at major Korean firms push for bonuses tied to profits Kakao union members rally outside the company's Pangyo headquarters in Seongnam on Wednesday, behind a banner demanding that management step down. (Yoon Chang-bin/The Korea Herald) Unionized workers at Kakao walked off the job Wednesday in the first strike at the company's headquarters since its founding, escalating a monthslong dispute over how the operator of KakaoTalk, the messaging app used by most South Koreans, divides its profits with employees.The Crew Union, which represents Kakao staff, staged a four-hour partial strike from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., excluding the lunch hour. By late morning, the union said more than 1,000 headquarters employees had joined, with about 1,500 taking part across the group. Four affiliates whose wage talks had also broken down joined the walkout: Kakao Pay, Kakao Enterprise, DK Techin and XL Games.Around midday, workers rallied at the plaza outside Pangyo Station in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, then marched through the surrounding tech district, joined by union members from Naver, Nexon and NCsoft. Kakao union members march through Pangyo in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, on Wednesday during a four-hour partial strike, marking the first walkout in the company's history. (Yonhap) At issue is the formula for performance pay. The union wants bonuses tied to a fixed share of operating profit, reported to be between 13 and 15 percent, which it says would come to roughly 10 million won ($6,560) per worker. It also wants 5 million won in restricted stock units paid separately rather than counted as part of the bonus. Kakao began granting the shares to employees with a year of tenure last year in place of stock options.The company has offered a compensation pool that folds in the stock units, which the union calculates at about 10 percent of operating profit.The fight reaches beyond Kakao. Through 2026, unions at major Korean firms have pushed to lock bonuses to a set percentage of profit, a demand that gained traction after Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, lifted by the memory-chip boom, faced similar pressure. The approach sets worker claims over company earnings against management's argument that fixed payouts erode the flexibility to invest, a tension sharpened in a year when firms are pouring money into artificial intelligence.Kakao posted record first-quarter results, with an operating profit of 211.4 billion won, up 65.9 percent from a year earlier, on revenue of 1.94 trillion won. The union argues that the gains have gone to executives while restructuring and spinoffs leave ordinary staff exposed.Services like KakaoTalk and Kakao Pay ran normally through the morning. Because most service operations are automated, the walkout caused no visible disruption, and the company said it had a real-time response system running. The Ministry of Science and ICT reviewed service-stability measures with Kakao before the strike. Kakao said it would keep talking with the union toward a deal.