Labor union demands Naver Financial chief resign after bullying incident

Former Naver COO Choi In-hyuk speaking about the seller support program at Naver Partner Square in Gwangju in this 2018 file photo. Courtesy of Naver

By Kim Jae-heun

The union of IT giant Naver has urged the firm to remove its chief operating officer (COO), Choi In-hyuk, from all his positions for bullying a programmer in his 40s, who took his own life last month.

Choi offered to resign as COO position last week, but he is still CEO of Naver Financial and the Happybean Foundation.

“We have decided that Choi is no longer qualified to serve as an executive either at Naver (headquarters) or at any of its affiliates. We urge the firm to dismiss him from all of his positions at Naver, including Naver Financial,” a union official said.

The union also requested that the firm establish a taskforce, consisting of an equal number of members from both the union and management to prevent additional bullying or harassment incidents from taking place at worksites.

The union warned that if its request was not accepted, it would consider taking possible collective action, such as organizing demonstrations and rallies starting today.

The company conducted an internal investigation and admitted that Choi had given the employee a hard time at the office. The headquarters had decided just to suspend Choi from the COO position, but he had offered to quit. Naver said that it will not impose any further punishment on the former COO.

Choi has been pointed to as the key individual whose actions led to his subordinate's death, which took place May 25. Police are currently conducting an investigation based on a note found with the deceased's body, which had the names of several people who were allegedly bullying him, saying that he suffered extreme stress from them.

The union has been carrying out its own investigation into the situation since May 31.

“We called, and met and interviewed 60 current and former colleagues of the deceased between June 23 and June 24, and confirmed that the programmer's death was caused by an incident on duty. His immediate team leader, surnamed Shin, of the Naver Map service development team, is the direct assailant and Choi was indirectly involved,” the union said.