[Plaintiff, Appellant] Yuseong Tourism Development Country Club Labor Union, Litigation Representative Attorney Yoon Jong-hyun and 3 others
[Defendant, Appellee] Head of Yuseong-gu, Daejeon Metropolitan City, Litigation Representative Attorney Song Myung-kwan
[Lower Court Judgment]
Seoul High Court, Judgment of February 1, 1990, Case No. 89Gu9762
[Order]
The judgment of the court below is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court.
[Reasoning]
The grounds of appeal are examined.
(1) The court below found the following facts: Non-party Yuseong Tourism Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "the non-party company"), while operating the Yuseong Country Club golf course located in Deokmyeong-dong, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, maintains under its umbrella approximately 300 caddies who assist visitors playing golf; the company mainly places recruitment advertisements in newspapers, has applicants submit resumes and copies of resident registration, selects and secures caddies, and after a certain period of preparation, has them serve as regular caddies; the caddies have never entered into any form of employment contract with the non-party company, but merely follow the company's instructions to form a group with a specific visitor during the round, carrying the visitor's golf bag, taking out clubs at the visitor's request, retrieving balls that have gone into the woods or wiping off balls soiled with dirt, and repairing divots caused by swinging clubs (repairing divots is an obligation of the player under the rules of golf) — in other words, performing tasks that the visitor would otherwise have to perform himself; in return, the caddies receive the caddie fee of KRW 5,000 that is paid together with the green fee by the visitor (after this incident, the caddies receive it directly from the visitor), and after the round, receive any gratuity the visitor voluntarily gives, but receive no wages or pay of any kind, under any name, from the non-party company; nor does the non-party company involve itself at all in the amount of the caddies' income, nor does it withhold wage income tax; the non-party company does not implement employment rules with respect to the caddies, but since the caddies earn income by using the golf course facilities, it was necessary to maintain minimum order within the facility and, for the purpose of improving the quality of service to visitors, to exercise a degree of control over the caddies; accordingly, the company assigned a caddie master to ensure strict adherence to working hours, to provide the education necessary for assisting in play, and to have the caddies clean facilities soiled by visitors, and where a caddie violated the company's instructions, imposed sanctions such as suspension from work or refusal of assignment; although the caddies were subject to the above-described control, apart from that there was in principle no relationship of subordination between them and the non-party company; once the scheduled assistance for the visitor's round was completed, the caddies were free to come and go as they pleased; and the caddie team-leader system, whereby senior or exemplary caddies were made to check attendance among themselves on an autonomous basis, is difficult to regard as forming an intermediate management structure of the company. Based on these findings, the court below held that it would be more reasonable to view the caddies as having entered into an employment or work-contract relationship with the visitors, through the intermediation of the non-party company, and as engaging in the business of assisting visitors in their rounds, rather than as having entered into an employment contract with the non-party company; and that although the caddies are subject to a certain degree of direction and supervision by the non-party company with respect to attendance times, work conditions, and repair of divots or cleaning arising in the course of visitors' rounds, such direction and supervision is limited to the minimum scope necessary to maintain order incidental to the use of the golf course facilities, and this alone cannot lead to a different characterization of the legal relationship among the caddies, the non-party company, and the visitors; the court below thus held, in effect, that the caddies are not employees of the non-party company.
(2)
Article 3 of the Trade Union Act (노동조합법) provides that the subjects of a trade union are workers, and
Article 4 of the same Act provides that "worker" means a person who lives on wages, salary, or other income equivalent thereto, regardless of the type of occupation.
A "worker" under the Trade Union Act means a person who performs labor under a relationship of subordination to another, and who lives by receiving wages, etc., in return therefor; so long as such a relationship of subordination to another exists, it does not matter whether the form of the labor-supply contract in question is employment, a work contract, mandate, an unnamed contract, or any other form; and whether such a relationship of subordination exists is to be determined by the substantive realities of the labor relationship, including whether there exists a relationship of direction and supervision between the employer and the person supplying labor, whether the remuneration is in the nature of consideration for labor, and the nature and content of the labor; so long as such a relationship of subordination is recognized, the person may be regarded as a worker under the Trade Union Act.
According to the record: ① the caddies belonging to the non-party company, in performing the task of assisting visitors in their rounds, receive instructions from staff of the non-party company such as the caddie master; their attendance times are also set by the non-party company according to an assigned numerical order; they are required to work early-morning shifts and, even on days when the course is closed, to report for work to receive training or clean the golf course facilities; thus they must supply labor under the direction and supervision of the non-party company; and where a caddie violates the work instructions or decisions of the non-party company side, such as the caddie master, or is absent without leave, etc., sanctions are imposed as penalties—such as suspension from work for a fixed period or refusal of assignment—which deal a decisive blow to the caddies' income; and the caddies are controlled through a caddie team leader appointed by the non-party company side. ② Moreover, upon completion of the task of assisting a visitor, the caddie receives remuneration, i.e., the caddie fee, from the non-party company; although it is difficult to conclude definitively that this caddie fee constitutes "wages" under the Labor Standards Act (근로기준법), it appears that, at the time the caddie was selected and hired by the non-party company as a caddie for its golf course, there was an implicit agreement between the caddie and the non-party company that the caddie would provide labor to whichever visitor the non-party company arbitrarily designated, and would receive in return from the non-party company a fixed sum of KRW 5,000 per round as the caddie fee; such an agreement appears to closely resemble an employment contract relationship, and therefore it does not seem improper to regard the caddie fee as "other income equivalent thereto" as provided in Article 4 of the Trade Union Act (even if the method of paying the caddie fee was changed to one in which the visitor pays the caddie directly, this should be understood as follows: the non-party company, which as noted above appears to bear the obligation to pay the caddie fee, is deemed to have received the caddie fee from the visitor—who, in order to play on the non-party company's golf course, is in any event obliged to pay the caddie fee—and to have instead delegated to the visitor the task of paying the caddie fee to the caddie; accordingly, a change in the method of payment of the caddie fee cannot be regarded as changing the entity responsible for paying it). ③ In addition, in light of the nature of the caddies' work and the fact that their working hours, etc., are set by the non-party company and they are required to report for work every day, it is in practice difficult for them to take employment with another company, so that the caddies appear to be almost exclusively attached to the non-party company. In light of these circumstances, the caddies belonging to the non-party company's golf course should be regarded as being in a relationship of dependent labor with the non-party company.
Accordingly, although the above caddies may be regarded as workers under the Trade Union Act, the judgment of the court below, which held to the contrary that they are not employees of the non-party company, is unlawful in that it misapprehended the facts in violation of the rules of evidence, or erred in its understanding of the legal principles concerning the concept of "worker" under the Trade Union Act. The argument [of the appellant] is well-founded.
(3) Accordingly, the judgment of the court below is reversed and the case is remanded, and this judgment is rendered as stated in the Order by the unanimous opinion of the Justices involved.
Justice Choi Jae-ho (Presiding Justice), Bae Man-un, Kim Seok-su (Justice in Charge), Choi Jong-young