Section 2: Individual Labor Relations
Chapter 11: Discrimination Correction for Non-Regular Employees
5. Reasonable Reasons
5.2 Recognition of Reasonable Reasons for Not Including the Period of Fixed-term Employment in the Calculation Period for Long Service Allowance
| Supreme Court, Decision on September 24, 2014, Case 2012du2207 | |||||
| * Plaintiff, Appellant: Plaintiff 1 and 2 others
* Defendant, Appellee: Chairman of the National Labor Relations Commission * Defendant's Supporting Participant: Korea Railroad Corporation 1. Facts a. The participant, initially known as the National Railroad Administration, was privatized and reestablished as a government-invested institution on December 31,2004. With its headquarters in Daejeon, the participant employs approximately 32,000 permanent workers and oversees railway transportation and vehicle maintenance. It operates 12 regional headquarters, including the 'Seoul Regional Headquarters,' and three vehicle maintenance units, such as the 'Metropolitan Area Railway Vehicle Maintenance Unit,' along with other stations and business offices. b. All plaintiffs were employed by the participant company on January 1, 2007, as fixed-term employees with a one-year contract. They were assigned to the Metropolitan Area Railway Vehicle Maintenance Unit, with Plaintiffs 1 and 2 serving as vehicle managers, and Plaintiff 3 as a goods manager. Their contracts were renewed annually on January 1, 2008, and January 1, 2009, respectively. Starting January 1, 2010, they were transitioned to indefinite-term positions and have remained employed in these roles to the present. c. The plaintiffs argued that the participant company's failure to consider their military service for salary step increments and the non-payment of a long-term service bonus constituted discriminatory treatment under Clauses 3 and 8 of Article 2 of the Act on the Protection of Fixed-Term Workers. They filed a request for correction of this discriminatory treatment with the Seoul Regional Labor Relations Commission around March 2010. In June 2010, the Commission partially upheld their claims, acknowledging that excluding military service from salary step increments was discriminatory and ordered the payment of the wage difference, including military service in the salary increments. However, the claim regarding the plaintiffs' long-term service bonus was dismissed on the grounds that there was a justifiable reason for the unfavorable treatment, and thus it did not constitute discriminatory treatment. The decision was made to partially uphold the request. d. The plaintiffs, dissatisfied with the initial decision of the Seoul Regional Labor Relations Commission, applied for reexamination on July 28, 2010, at the Central Labor Relations Commission, seeking to overturn the decision regarding the long-term service bonus. However, the Central Labor Relations Commission rejected their reexamination application on October 19, 2010, for the same reasons as the initial decision. 2. Court Judgment a. The term "unfavorable treatment" as referred to in Article 2, Paragraph 3 of the Act on the Protection, etc., of Fixed-Term and Part-Time Workers, means the overall disadvantage experienced by fixed-term workers due to being treated differently from the comparative workers in terms of wages and other working conditions. Therefore, whether "unfavorable treatment" exists must be judged based on whether the "fixed-term worker" is treated unfavorably in comparison to the "regular worker," who serves as the comparative worker. b. Article 2, Paragraph 3 of the Act on the Protection, etc., of Fixed-Term and Part-Time Workers defines discriminatory treatment as "unfavorable treatment in wages and other working conditions without reasonable justification." Here, the absence of "reasonable justification" means that there is either no recognized need to treat fixed-term workers differently, or if there is a recognized need, the method or extent of the different treatment is not appropriate. Furthermore, whether there is reasonable justification must be determined by comprehensively considering the specific details of the unfavorable treatment in question, as well as factors such as the worker's employment type, job content, scope, authority, responsibility, wages, and other working conditions, which the employer cited as reasons for the unfavorable treatment. c. According to the reasoning of the lower court's judgment, the lower court adopted the reasoning of the first-instance court's decision and deemed it appropriate to select the comparative workers in this Case as those who had indefinite-term employment contracts and were engaged in the same or similar tasks at the relevant business or workplace under Article 8(1) of the Act on the Protection, etc., of Fixed-Term and Part-Time Workers (hereinafter referred to as the "Fixed-Term Workers Act"). When comparing the plaintiffs to these comparative workers to determine whether they received unfavorable treatment, the court found that (i) among the 15 comparative workers who were initially fixed-term workers but later converted to regular employment, like the plaintiffs, their fixed-term employment period was not recognized as part of their continuous service period, making it difficult to conclude that the plaintiffs received unfavorable treatment compared to them. However, for the two workers who were regular employees from the beginning, as their entire employment period was included in the calculation of their long-term service allowance, the court judged that the plaintiffs were treated unfavorably in comparison to them. (ii) Regarding Plaintiff 3's chosen comparative worker, who was a fixed-term worker later converted to regular employment, since this worker's fixed-term employment period was not recognized as part of their continuous service period, it is difficult to see that Plaintiff 3 was treated unfavorably compared to this comparative worker. Furthermore, the lower court determined that even if the plaintiffs were treated unfavorably compared to the comparative workers in this Case, there was a reasonable justification for such treatment. The court reasoned that long-term service allowances are intended either to encourage long-term employment or to reward long-term employees, which are not particularly applicable to fixed-term employment. |
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| Download : 대법 2012두2207.pdf | |||||
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