Establishment of a Labor Union for Foreign English Teachers

I. Introduction

More than 15,000 foreign English teachers are working in Korea with legitimate work visas (E-2) as of 2009, but they have not yet received sufficient legal protection under labor law. A labor union established by foreign English teachers has a lot of meaning, as it is the first legal entity for foreign English teachers, established under Korean labor law. The labor union is able to promote job security for them, and gives them the ability to collectively confront unlawful labor practices by some employers. Most foreign English teachers have been receiving fair treatment in accordance with their employment contract, but there are still more than a few who have suffered from their employers’ unilateral changes of working conditions or non-fulfillment of legally-binding contracts. Frequently occurring examples include dismissing the foreign teacher in the eleventh month to avoid paying severance pay, delaying payment of the last month’s wages and severance pay, dismissing English teachers without justifiable reason in the middle of the contract period because employers dislike them, and not paying overtime allowance for overtime work. I strongly believe that this establishment of a labor union for foreign teachers will contribute to the betterment of their working conditions and promote job security by legitimately confronting unlawful labor practices of some of their employers.
Here, I would like to explain the background reasons for this labor union, and I would also like to show how the labor union and its by-laws (self-regulating rules) can be established.

II. Background to the Establishment of the Labor Union

1. Disputes on working hours
In early September 2009, five foreign English teachers working at an institute in Inchon visited this labor law firm and we began establishing a case regarding their unpaid overtime allowance. The teachers were supposed to work 30 hours per week, 6 hours per day, to complete their contractual working hours according to their employment contract, but their employer had them working 40 hours a week by keeping them at work for 8 hours a day, which resulted in two hours of overtime every day. The employment contract stipulates, “The employee shall work 30 hours per week, or 120 hours per month. If the employee agrees to work overtime, the employer shall pay a 15,000 won overtime rate per hour.” At a meeting between the employer and the teachers on September 1, one female foreign English teacher brought up the issue of working overtime without being paid for overtime, and the employer gave her verbal notice that her employment would be terminated in one month. Uncertain of their rights, the foreign English teachers brought their concerns to this labor law firm as a group, seeking remedy for their situation. Then the English teachers collectively refused to do any more overtime that was not stipulated in the employment contract.
The labor inspector in charge of this petition case investigated both parties. The employer stated that the actual teaching hours were only 6 per day, but the remaining hours were preparation time required for teaching. However, the teachers claimed they had to come to the institute for preparation, and if they were late, they were penalized. Therefore, this mandatory preparation time should be regarded as working hours. In this dispute, the labor inspector confirmed that each day the teachers had to stay in the institute for two hours above the regulated 6 working hours, but that they had some time for dinner between their working hours. The labor inspector concluded that the employer be ordered to pay 50% of what the teachers claimed as unpaid overtime work.

2. Disadvantageous treatment and establishment of the labor union
The employer decided not to dismiss the female teacher who initially brought up the unpaid overtime as the labor attorney submitted the petition to the labor office. However, right after the petition was concluded, the employer called a disciplinary hearing for the teacher concerned and dismissed her immediately. The same teachers who filed the first petition were sure that the same thing would happen to them, so they visited this labor law firm again on November 12, 2009, and requested that a labor union be established.
To aid them, this labor attorney gave some lectures to the five foreign teachers on the benefits of establishing a labor union, how to establish and operate one, and then assisted them in their general meeting designed to establish the labor union, the bylaws and labor union registration. In particular, this labor attorney had to complete, in English as well as Korean, the documents required to register the labor union: application forms, bylaws, and meeting minutes for the general meeting. These bilingual documents were designed not only to help the foreign English teachers operate the labor union democratically and independently, but also to ensure they were able to provide qualified documents for the district (Gu) official in charge of union registration in Inchon. The district official concerned thoroughly reviewed the documents for registering the labor union, checked with the labor office in that area, and, finding nothing amiss, issued a Certificate of Labor Union Establishment on November 24, 2009.

III. Method for Establishing a Labor Union

1. Procedures for establishing a labor union
To establish a labor union, the employees shall complete an application form for labor union establishment and submit it, along with their Union’s bylaws, to the related administrative office, and the administrative office shall issue a Certificate of Labor Union Establishment as long as there is no reason to reject it. Before this, the employees who want to establish a labor union shall hold a general meeting where they shall establish the union bylaws and elect union officials. The administrative office very often requests meeting minutes of the general meeting as verification that the bylaws were legitimately established and union officials properly elected. Therefore the meeting minutes are used to objectively verify that the labor union was established according to legally appropriate procedures.