[Plaintiff, Appellee] Plaintiff, Counsel: Sungsim General Law Firm, Attorney in charge Kang Su-rim
[Defendant, Appellant] Hansung Co., Ltd., Counsel: Attorney Lee Jeong-ho
[Judgment Below] Seoul High Court Decision 92Na18605 rendered on October 13, 1992
[Order]
The appeal is dismissed.
The costs of the appeal shall be borne by the Defendant.
[Reasoning]
The grounds of appeal are examined.
As to Ground No. 1,
It is the view of this Court that where the making or modification of rules of employment (취업규칙) pursuant to Article 95(1) of the Labor Standards Act (근로기준법) (as it stood before the amendment of March 29, 1989) deprives workers of vested rights or interests and imposes unfavorable working conditions, such making or modification requires the consent, obtained through a method of collective decision-making, of the group of workers who had been subject to the previous working conditions or rules of employment, and that rules of employment made or modified without such consent must be deemed invalid unless they can be recognized as having reasonableness in light of common social norms.
According to the facts lawfully found by the court below, the Defendant company amended its remuneration regulations effective January 1, 1981. Under the amendment, although the basic method of calculating the amount of retirement allowance—namely, multiplying the monthly salary at the time of retirement by the retirement allowance payment rate corresponding to the length of service—remained unchanged, the retirement allowance payment rate was adjusted downward from the previous rate, and the meaning of "monthly salary" was changed. Whereas it previously meant the average monthly wage at the time of retirement, it came to mean only one-third of the sum of (i) the basic salary and various allowances commonly paid to employees each month for the last three months from the day immediately preceding the date of retirement, and (ii) the amount equivalent to 3/12 of the annual leave allowance and bonus allowance paid during the one year immediately preceding retirement. At the time the Defendant company amended the remuneration regulations as above, it did so only through a resolution of its board of directors, without taking any procedure to accommodate the collective will of its employees or to obtain their consent. In light of the foregoing, the amendment of the remuneration regulations, in its substance, lowered the retirement allowance payment rate applicable to employees and restricted the scope of wages serving as the basis for calculating retirement allowances, thereby resulting in a reduction of the amount of retirement allowance payable; it is thus clear that the amendment constituted an unfavorable change for the employees. Accordingly, the Defendant company should have obtained the consent of the group of workers who had been subject to the regulations prior to the amendment; however, since the Defendant company failed to take any procedure to obtain such consent, the amendment of the remuneration regulations must be held to have no effect as against the employees who had been subject to the pre-amendment regulations. The judgment below, which is to the same effect, is justified.
Furthermore, the court below rejected the Defendant company's argument that the employees of the Defendant company had impliedly consented to the amendment of the remuneration regulations, on the ground that the content of the amendment was widely reported in the press at the time; that, after the amendment was made, the Defendant company immediately distributed the amended remuneration regulations to its executives and employees and allowed them to review them; and that employees who retired thereafter received their retirement allowances calculated under the amended remuneration regulations without objection. The court below found, based on the evidence cited, that the content of the amendment had indeed been reported in daily newspapers, that the Defendant company had distributed the amended content to its executives and employees and allowed them to review it after the amendment, and that some employees who retired thereafter had received retirement allowances calculated under the amended remuneration regulations; however, it held that these circumstances alone were insufficient to find that the employees of the Defendant company had impliedly consented to the amendment of the remuneration regulations, and that there was no other evidence to recognize that the employees of the Defendant company had impliedly consented to the amended remuneration regulations, thereby rejecting the Defendant company's above argument. Upon examination of the record, such fact-finding and judgment by the court below are deemed correct and are accepted.
There is no illegality in the judgment below, such as a misunderstanding of the legal principles under Article 95 of the Labor Standards Act. This ground of appeal is without merit.
As to Ground No. 2,
The court below determined that the mere fact that the Plaintiff filed the instant lawsuit approximately one year and six months after August 31, 1989, the date of retirement, does not mean that the filing of this lawsuit by the Plaintiff violates the principle of good faith. This determination by the court below is deemed correct and is accepted, and there is no illegality of misunderstanding the legal principles concerning the principle of good faith as pointed out in the argument. This ground of appeal is also without merit.
As to Ground No. 3,
The court below rejected the Defendant company's argument that the amendment of the remuneration regulations was reasonable because it was made in accordance with the government's adjustment policy, on the grounds of financial pressure on the management and profit-making activities of government-invested institutions caused by excessively high salary levels of executives and employees belonging to government-invested institutions at the time, and the need for equity with the salary levels of general public officials. The court below held that even if the amendment of the remuneration regulations had been made in accordance with the government's policy to the above effect, it could not be deemed that there existed reasonableness under common social norms sufficient to dispense with the need to obtain the consent of the group of workers, thereby rejecting the Defendant company's above argument. This determination by the court below is deemed correct and is accepted, and there is no illegality such as a misunderstanding of the legal principles concerning Article 95(1) of the Labor Standards Act. This ground of appeal is also without merit.
In conclusion, since all the grounds of appeal are without merit, the appeal is dismissed, and it is so decided as stated in the Order by the unanimous opinion of the Justices participating in the decision.
Justice Kim Ju-han (Presiding Justice), Choi Jae-ho (Justice in charge), Yoon Kwan, Kim Yong-jun