[Plaintiffs, Appellees]
[Defendant, Appellant] Korea Institute of Industrial Technology (Attorney Kim Se-bae, Counsel for the Defendant)
[Judgment Below] Seoul High Court Judgment 95Na16266, rendered August 16, 1995
[Order]
The appeal is dismissed. The costs of the appeal are to be borne by the Defendant.
[Reasoning]
The grounds for appeal are examined.
1. As to Ground for Appeal No. 1
The court below found the following facts: the non-party Korea Precision Instruments Center (재단법인 한국정밀기기센터), a foundation, was established around April 13, 1966, and was absorbed into and consolidated with the non-party Korea Mechanical and Metal Testing Research Institute (재단법인 한국기계금속시험연구소), a foundation, around April 1, 1979; the said Korea Mechanical and Metal Testing Research Institute was thereafter consolidated with the non-party Korea Ship Research Institute (재단법인 한국선박연구소), a foundation, around May 1981, becoming the non-party Korea Institute of Machinery and Metals (재단법인 한국기계연구소), a foundation; in each of these consolidation processes, the business and all executives and employees of the preceding foundation were successively taken over by the foundation resulting from the consolidation; thereafter, around October 12, 1989, upon the establishment of the Defendant, the personnel, property, business, budget, and all rights and obligations of the said Korea Institute of Machinery and Metals were comprehensively succeeded to by the Defendant pursuant to the Defendant's articles of incorporation; and the Plaintiffs, who had joined the said Korea Precision Instruments Center, continued to perform the same duties as employees without undergoing any procedures such as retirement or re-employment due to the change in the managing entity during the successive consolidations of the said Korea Precision Instruments Center as described above, and ultimately retired while employed by the Defendant. Based on these findings, the court below determined that the Plaintiffs' employment contract relationships with the said Korea Precision Instruments Center, Korea Mechanical and Metal Testing Research Institute, and Korea Institute of Machinery and Metals were comprehensively and successively succeeded to, ultimately by the Defendant, upon each of the aforementioned consolidations. This determination by the court below is in accordance with the precedents of this Court (see this Court's Judgment 92Da23834, rendered January 25, 1994, and Judgment 93Da1589, rendered March 8, 1994, among others) and is justified. It cannot be said that the judgment below erred in law by misunderstanding the legal principles concerning the comprehensive succession of employment contract relationships in the merger of enterprises, as argued. Accordingly, this ground for appeal is without merit.
2. As to Ground for Appeal No. 2
Since matters concerning retirement allowances constitute one of the mandatory items to be included in the Rules of Employment (see Article 94, Item 5 of the Labor Standards Act (근로기준법)), even if an employer maintains separate and independent Retirement Allowance Rules apart from the Rules of Employment, such Retirement Allowance Rules shall be deemed to constitute part of the Rules of Employment and to bear the character of Rules of Employment. Accordingly, if an employer amends the Retirement Allowance Rules in a manner disadvantageous to employees without obtaining the consent of the labor union or the collective body of employees as prescribed under Article 95, Paragraph 1 of the Labor Standards Act, such amended Retirement Allowance Rules shall have no effect as against the existing employees.
Therefore, the judgment below, having determined to the same effect, is justified, and it cannot be said that the judgment below erred in law by misunderstanding the legal principles under Article 95 of the Labor Standards Act or by rendering a determination contrary to the precedents of the Supreme Court, as argued. Accordingly, this ground for appeal is also without merit.
3. As to Ground for Appeal No. 3
Where an employment contract relationship has been comprehensively succeeded to through a transfer of business, merger of enterprises, or the like, the employee's status under the preceding employment contract is likewise succeeded to as it stood; accordingly, if the Retirement Allowance Rules applicable after such succession are less favorable to the employee than the Retirement Allowance Rules applicable prior to the succession, the post-succession Retirement Allowance Rules cannot be applied without the consent obtained through the collective decision-making method of the relevant group of employees as prescribed under Article 95, Paragraph 1 of the Labor Standards Act (see the aforementioned Judgment 93Da1589; Judgment 91Da17542, rendered September 24, 1991; and Judgment 93Da58714, rendered August 26, 1994, among others). Meanwhile, although Article 28, Paragraph 2 of the Labor Standards Act and Paragraph 2 of the Addenda (Act No. 3349, December 31, 1980) prohibit the establishment of differential retirement allowance systems within a single business, the purpose of this prohibition is to prevent discrimination in retirement allowances based on job type, position, or type of business within a single business. Accordingly, even where, as described above, a new retirement allowance system introduced after the comprehensive succession of the employment relationship infringes upon the vested interests of existing employees such that it has no effect as to them, thereby necessitating the application of the previous Retirement Allowance Rules to them, and where this results in the operation, as a practical matter, of separate retirement allowance systems within a single business, such circumstance does not fall under the establishment of a differential retirement allowance system prohibited under the aforementioned Article 28, Paragraph 2 and Paragraph 2 of the Addenda (see this Court's en banc Judgment 91Da45165, rendered December 22, 1992).
The judgment below, having determined to the same effect, is justified, and this ground for appeal is also without merit.
4. As to Ground for Appeal No. 4
Whether or not the Defendant's Retirement Allowance Rules satisfy the minimum requirements demanded under Article 28, Paragraph 1 of the Labor Standards Act has no bearing on the conclusion of this case. Accordingly, this ground for appeal is also without merit.
5. Therefore, the appeal is dismissed, and the costs of the appeal are to be borne by the losing party. This judgment is rendered as set forth in the Order by the unanimous opinion of the participating Justices.
Justice Jung Gwi-ho (Presiding Justice), Kim Seok-su, Lee Don-hee, Lee Im-su (Reporting Justice)