KakaoBank union launches work-to-rule campaign after first-ever all-day strike fails to break wage deadlock

A labor dispute at KakaoBank shows no sign of resolution. After the internet-only bank's first-ever all-day strike failed to break a wage deadlock, the union launched a work-to-rule campaign, turning up the pressure on management as negotiations remain stalled.

The Kakao chapter of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions' Chemical, Textile and Food Industry Workers' Union — known as Crew Union — began the work-to-rule action at KakaoBank at midnight Wednesday, according to the financial industry.

The union secured the right to industrial action through a membership vote following the Gyeonggi Province Regional Labor Relations Commission's decision to suspend mediation on July 20. The union said the work-to-rule campaign is an industrial action taken on the basis of that right.

Participating union members will work only within an average of 40 hours per week, calculated on a monthly basis. They will also refuse night shifts, overtime and holiday work.

After regular working hours, members will not accept work instructions delivered by phone or messenger. They will also decline emergency outage responses and requests for immediate action that fall outside the scope of the collective agreement.

A work-to-rule campaign pressures management by strictly adhering to laws, collective agreements and workplace procedures that are routinely overlooked in practice. Unlike a full strike, which halts all work, it affects operations by limiting work to set hours and following every required procedure to the letter.

According to the National Archives of Korea, when workers collectively refuse overtime that has become standard practice at a workplace and thereby disrupt normal operations, the action constitutes an industrial dispute.

However, union members plan to carry out their assigned duties normally during regular working hours and to comply with safety, security and review procedures. The union said the action is not an abandonment of work but strict adherence to statutory working hours and company-set procedures.

The union said stable financial services should not depend on a handful of employees working long hours or remaining on call after hours. It argued that responsibility for building service continuity and outage-response systems lies with the company — which must provide adequate staffing and work arrangements — not with individual workers.

Baek Ung, a staff representative of the Kakao chapter, said the reality that simply doing one's job during set hours and resting afterward has to become a form of protest must change. "If operational problems emerge from this work-to-rule campaign, it will show how heavily the company's work systems have relied on employees' unpaid overtime and sacrifice," he said.

He added that KakaoBank must take responsibility for securing the staffing and outage-response systems needed to run a financial institution.

The union said it would respond firmly to any attempt by the company to distort the intent of the campaign, check whether individual members are participating, pressure or coax them, or impose any disadvantage on them.

The union had staged a full-day strike on July 31 — the first since the internet-only bank began operations — with the union counting more than 700 participants.

That figure represents about 40 percent of KakaoBank's roughly 1,800 employees. Management and the union have been unable to narrow their differences over the performance pay structure in this year's wage negotiations, and no further talks have taken place since mediation was suspended. By contrast, Kakao's parent company and other affiliates — including Kakao Enterprise and Kakao Pay — have effectively wrapped up their own wage negotiations, with outcomes diverging across the group.

Seo Seung-uk, chair of the Kakao chapter, said the work-to-rule campaign is aimed at creating a sustainable working environment for employees and a stable service-operations framework. "We will continue lawful industrial action together with our members until the company offers responsible dialogue and a genuine solution," he said.