[Defendant]
[Appellant] Prosecutor
[Defense Counsel] Attorney Kim Yu-jeong of Yeoneun Law LLC and 2 others
[Lower Court Judgment] Incheon District Court Decision 2014No230, decided May 23, 2014
[Order]
The appeal is dismissed.
[Reasoning] The grounds for appeal (including the supplementary brief on grounds for appeal submitted after the deadline for submission of grounds for appeal, to the extent it supplements the grounds for appeal) are examined as follows.
1. "Workers" as referred to in Article 2, Item 1 and Item 4, Item (ra), main text, of the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act (노동조합 및 노동관계조정법, hereinafter the "Trade Union Act") may include not only persons who are employed by and actually working for a specific employer, but also persons who are temporarily unemployed or seeking employment, and other persons for whom there is a need to guarantee the three labor rights (see Supreme Court Decision 2001Du8568, decided February 27, 2004; Supreme Court en banc Decision 2007Du4995, decided June 25, 2015, etc.).
Moreover, the proviso to Article 2, Item 4, Item (ra) of the Trade Union Act, which exceptionally interprets a dismissed person who has filed an application for relief as a "worker," must be understood as applying only in a limited manner where a member of an enterprise-level trade union is dismissed and thereby denied worker status, and not to industry-wide, occupation-wide, or region-wide trade unions that are not premised on a subordinate relationship with a specific employer (see Supreme Court Decision 2001Du8568, decided February 27, 2004; Supreme Court Decision 2012Du28247, decided January 29, 2015, etc.).
2. The lower court, for the reasons stated in its judgment, determined as follows: (1) ① even if the trade union at issue in this case, which completed its establishment report as a supra-enterprise trade union rather than an enterprise-level trade union, permits in its bylaws the admission as members of dismissed persons or persons in unemployment, this does not violate Article 2, Item 4, Item (ra) of the Trade Union Act, and therefore cannot constitute grounds for a notice of exclusion from trade union status (법외노조 통보) under Article 9, Paragraph 2 of the Enforcement Decree of the Trade Union Act (노동조합 및 노동관계조정법 시행령, hereinafter "the instant Enforcement Decree provision") and Article 12, Paragraph 3, Item 1 of the Trade Union Act; ② the fact that the trade union at issue in this case sets its organizing scope to include workers beyond the Incheon region, extending to workers in other regions, likewise does not constitute grounds for a notice of exclusion from trade union status as prescribed by the instant Enforcement Decree provision; ③ accordingly, the notice of exclusion from trade union status issued in this case, having been made on a differing premise, is unlawful, and therefore the trade union at issue in this case cannot be deemed not to be "a trade union established under the Trade Union Act" despite the notice of exclusion from trade union status issued in this case; and (2) with respect to the facts charged in this case—namely, that "the defendant continued to use the name of a trade union even after having received the notice of exclusion from trade union status in this case"—the lower court determined that this fell under a case in which there was no proof of the crime, thereby upholding the conclusion of the first instance court, which had rendered a judgment of acquittal, and rejecting the prosecutor's argument on grounds of appeal concerning a misunderstanding of the law.
3. Examining the reasoning of the lower court's judgment in light of the legal principles set forth above and the lawfully adopted evidence, the lower court's determination, as described above, is not found to contain any error, as alleged in the grounds of appeal, of misunderstanding the legal principles concerning "workers" under the Trade Union Act, "trade unions established under the Trade Union Act," and notices of exclusion from trade union status, nor any error of misapprehending the facts or failing to conduct the necessary deliberation.
The Supreme Court decisions cited as grounds for appeal involve facts different from those of this case and are therefore not appropriate to be relied upon in this case.
4. Accordingly, the appeal is dismissed, and this Judgment is rendered as set forth in the Order by the unanimous opinion of the Justices participating in the deliberation.
Justice Kim So-young (Presiding Justice), Kim Yong-deok (Justice in Charge), Kim Shin, Lee Ki-taek