[Plaintiff, Appellee] ○○○ Labor Union (Attorney Kim Seon-su and 1 other, Counsel for the plaintiff)
[Defendant, Appellant] Mayor of Seoul Metropolitan Government (Attorney Bae Man-woon, Counsel for the defendant)
[Judgment Below] Seoul High Court Decision 2001Nu2234 dated September 19, 2001
[Order]
The appeal is dismissed. The costs of the appeal shall be borne by the Defendant.
[Reasoning]
According to the reasoning of the judgment below and the judgment of the court of first instance as cited by the court below, the lower court determined as follows: Whereas the Labor Standards Act (근로기준법) was enacted for the purpose of regulating individual labor relations from the perspective of "whether there is a need for direct protection, through State management and supervision, of a person who actually provides labor," the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act (노동조합및노동관계조정법, hereinafter the "Trade Union Act") was enacted for the purpose of regulating collective labor relations from the perspective of "whether there is a need to guarantee the right to organize, etc. among suppliers of labor," and thus the two statutes define the concept of "worker" differently according to their respective legislative purposes; and whereas, unlike enterprise-level labor unions, which require a certain relationship of subordination to an employer as a qualification for union membership, industry-wide, occupation-wide, or region-wide labor unions do not originally require a relationship of subordination to a particular employer as a qualification for union membership. In light of these points, the proviso to Article 2, Subparagraph 4, Item (ra) of the Trade Union Act is a provision established to address the situation where a member of an "enterprise-level labor union" is denied worker status as a result of having been dismissed by the employer, and applies only in a limited manner to such cases; it does not apply to industry-wide, occupation-wide, or region-wide labor unions, etc., which do not originally require a relationship of subordination to a particular employer. On these grounds, the lower court held that the term "worker" as used in Article 2, Subparagraph 1 and the main text of Subparagraph 4, Item (ra) of the Trade Union Act includes not only a person who is employed by a specific employer and is actually working, but also a person who is temporarily unemployed or seeking employment, so long as there is a need to guarantee the three labor rights (the right to organize, the right to collective bargaining, and the right to collective action) to such person. Accordingly, even if the Plaintiff, which has the character of a region-wide labor union, includes "female workers seeking employment" among its members, such "female workers seeking employment" also fall within the scope of "worker" under the Trade Union Act. The lower court therefore determined that the instant disposition, by which the Defendant returned the Plaintiff's report on the establishment of the instant labor union on the ground that female workers seeking employment do not qualify as workers, was unlawful.
Such determination by the court below is justified, and there is no error of law therein based on a misunderstanding of the legal principles concerning the concept of "worker" as defined under the Trade Union Act.
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, in accordance with the unanimous opinion of the participating Justices.
Justice Yoon Jae-sik (Presiding Justice), Byun Jae-seung, Kang Shin-uk, Ko Hyun-cheol (Justice in charge)