Korea’s Silicon Valley sees labor union boom as economy slows

NCSoft Corp. headquarters in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province [Courtesy of NCSoft]

Employees in Pangyo, known as Korea’s Silicon Valley, have begun making strong moves to establish labor unions in an effort to retain their jobs as the economic downturn has affect the labor market and flexibility in the industry could be affected.

According to the gaming industry on Monday, Korea’s largest gaming company NCSoft Corp. has formed a union for the first time. It is the fifth labor union in the gaming industry after those of Nexon Corp., Smilegate, Xlgames Inc. and Webzen Inc.

NCSoft announced the launch of its union branch under the National Chemical Fiber Food Industry Union, which is part of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. Its demand includes transparent evaluation, fair compensation, job stability and horizontal organizational culture.

There has been growing voices to form a labor union amid concerns over the wage gap between employees and reduced incentives. “We have created a labor union to protect our rights and have our voices heard,” said Song Ga-ram, the leader of the NCSoft union. “We will work within the union to change the company.”

The IT committee of the metropolitan chapter of the National Chemical Fiber Food Industry Union, where labor unions of Naver Corp., Kakao Corp., Nexon and Smilegate are part of, expressed support for the NCSoft branch and called for participation from the NCSoft employees.

The employees in the IT and gaming industry have been changing jobs frequently as pay was based on performance and thus considered a low cohesion group. However, it is changing as Korea’s big-tech companies Naver and Kakao have lately seen a rise in the number of labor union members. The union membership rate of Kakao has recently neared 50 percent and Naver 40 percent.

“A large number of employees enjoyed big salaries during the pandemic, but things have changed since the economic slowdown late last year,” said an executive from the gaming industry on condition of anonymity.