[Plaintiffs, Appellants] Plaintiff 1 and 5 others
[Defendant, Appellee] Korea Tokyo Electronics Co., Ltd., Litigation Representative: Pacific Joint Law Office, Attorney-in-charge Kim In-seop and 2 others
[Lower Court Judgment] Busan High Court, Judgment rendered February 21, 1992, Case No. 91Na4188
[Order]
The appeal is dismissed in its entirety.
The costs of the appeal shall be borne by the Plaintiffs.
[Reasoning] The grounds of appeal are examined.
1. Article 20, Paragraph 2 of the Collective Agreement (단체협약) concluded between the Defendant Company and the labor union organized by workers belonging to the Defendant Company provides, as one of the principles of personnel administration, that "with respect to personnel matters concerning officers, executives, delegates, and full-time union officials of the union, prior consultation shall be held with the union." Since disciplinary action against a worker constitutes a personnel matter, the above provision of the Collective Agreement must, in principle, be deemed to apply to the disciplinary dismissal of the Plaintiffs, who were officers, executives, or delegates of the said labor union, absent special circumstances. (See this Court's Judgment of May 22, 1992, Case No. 91Da22100.)
Accordingly, the lower court's determination that the "personnel matters" referred to in Article 20, Paragraph 2 of the above Collective Agreement should be understood as referring only to general personnel matters not including disciplinary action, and that the said provision therefore does not apply to the disciplinary dismissal of the Plaintiffs, cannot be deemed correct.
2. However, the "prior consultation" referred to in Article 20, Paragraph 2 of the above Collective Agreement is to be understood, not as a provision intended to comprehensively restrict the Defendant Company's personnel authority, including its disciplinary authority, by requiring the Defendant Company to obtain the approval or consent of the labor union or to make decisions through consultation with the labor union such that the exercise of the Defendant Company's personnel authority would be made subject to the concurrence of the will of both the Defendant Company and the labor union, but rather, it is properly understood as being intended merely to prevent the normal activities of the labor union from being obstructed by the Defendant Company's arbitrary exercise of personnel authority over officers, executives, and delegates of the labor union, by requiring the Defendant Company to notify the labor union in advance of the content of personnel actions concerning union officers, etc., thereby giving the labor union an opportunity to present its views necessary to ensure fairness in personnel matters, including disciplinary matters, and allowing the views so presented by the labor union to be taken into consideration as reference material. Therefore, the fact that the disciplinary dismissal of the Plaintiffs in this case was carried out without going through such "prior consultation" does not necessarily mean that it is thereby rendered invalid (see this Court's Judgment of June 9, 1992, Case No. 91Da41477). The precedent cited in the argument is not applicable to this case.
3. Upon examination of the record, the lower court's factual findings are deemed proper and are accepted. In light of the reasons and circumstances of the Defendant Company's disciplinary dismissal of the Plaintiffs as found by the lower court, and considering that Plaintiff 1 was the chairperson of the labor union, Plaintiff 3 and Plaintiff 4 were vice-chairpersons, Plaintiff 2 was the secretary-general, Plaintiff 5 was the head of the education department, and Plaintiff 6 was a delegate thereof; that, with the exception of Plaintiff 4, they were detained and indicted in connection with this case and were sentenced to imprisonment with actual execution or imprisonment with suspended execution in the criminal trial, while Plaintiff 4 was subject to a wanted notice; and further considering the circumstances that, when the Defendant Company had previously disciplined a non-party who was then a delegate of the labor union, the Defendant Company had likewise interpreted the "personnel matters" under the above provision as general personnel matters and had not conducted prior consultation with the labor union, and that at that time the labor union raised no objection thereto, and Plaintiff 1, who was then the chairperson, attended the disciplinary committee proceedings and made representations therein — taking these circumstances together into consideration, the mere fact that the Defendant Company did not hold prior consultation with the labor union in disciplinarily dismissing the Plaintiffs in this case cannot, by itself, render the disciplinary action void as a matter of course.
4. Accordingly, the lower court's conclusion rejecting the Plaintiffs' assertion that the disciplinary dismissal of the Plaintiffs was in violation of the above provision of the Collective Agreement and therefore void is justified, and the arguments on this point are without merit.
Therefore, the appeal is dismissed in its entirety, and the costs of the appeal are to be borne by the losing parties, this judgment being rendered as set forth in the Order by the unanimous opinion of the participating Justices.
Justice Choi Jong-young (Presiding Justice), Lee Hoi-chang, Bae Man-woon, Kim Seok-su