카카오 노조, ‘인적 분할’ 막을까…국민연금·소액주주 설득 나서

Kakao labor union (national textile chemical and food workers union Kakaojiho) has announced its plan to prevent the company's plan to "divide personnel" by seeking to secure opposition representatives from national pension funds with over 5% shareholding. On the 26th, Kakao labor union deputy secretary-general Seo Hyuk held a press conference at Kakao's Pantego subsidiary in Gyeonggi-do's Seongnam, stating that he aims to prevent the "personnel division" proposal from passing at the upcoming special shareholders' meeting in December by convincing major shareholders to vote against it.

Kakao is one of the three largest shareholders in the national pension fund, holding 5.40% of the shares. The labor union is taking this step because the proposal requires a special resolution, which means that at least two-thirds of the attendance-based voting rights and one-third of the total issued shares must vote in favor for it to pass.

Seo Hyuk stated that even with the cooperative stake of Kakao's largest shareholder, Kim Byeong-su, founder of the Future Initiative Center, Kakao remains a company with a large number of "worker investors" and thus cannot be completely controlled by a minority of institutional investors. The union believes that if even one-third of the attendance-based shareholders vote against the proposal, it will be a success and they intend to carry out activities to explain the problems of personnel division to internal employees and small shareholders as well as citizens.

In addition, Kakao recently announced its personnel division plan, separating the company into a holding company KakaoX and a newly established company KakaoAI, which will handle AI, advertising, and e-commerce businesses based on KakaoTalk. The labor union has long opposed personnel division, citing repeated management failures and employment insecurity in the company's merger and division processes.