[Defendant]
[Appellant] Defendant
[Defense Counsel] Attorney Park Yong-il
[Judgment Below]
Seoul Criminal District Court, Decision 91No822, dated April 3, 1991
[Order]
The appeal is dismissed.
95 days of the detention period after the appeal shall be included in the principal sentence.
[Reasoning]
1. Judgment on Ground of Appeal No. 1 by the Defendant and Defense Counsel
Upon examining the evidence adopted by the first instance judgment, which was cited by the court below, against the record, it can be sufficiently found that the Defendant, as the chairman of the labor union of the non-party company (hereinafter referred to as the "Company"), conducted a labor dispute act without undergoing the cooling-off period, without even filing a report of the occurrence of a labor dispute with the Labor Relations Commission, and without a resolution of approval by the union members (in particular, the point that union members working at the Company's Pyeongtaek factory and Anyang storage yard, following the Defendant's instructions, engaged in a labor dispute act of refusing to work on holidays).
Moreover, although the collective bargaining agreement concluded between labor and management provided that the Company, as the employer, could require employees to work on holidays when there was operational necessity, such as unavoidable circumstances in work or disruption in production plans, and the Company had, in accordance with this, customarily required holiday work, the employees, without any justifiable reason, collectively refused the Company's order for holiday work for the purpose of pushing through their own demands, and this constitutes an act that impedes the normal operation of the Company's business,
and thus constitutes a labor dispute act under Article 3 of the Labor Dispute Adjustment Act (노동쟁의조정법).
Therefore, the argument that the judgment below, which took the same view, is unlawful for violating the rules of evidence or for erroneously interpreting the law regarding labor dispute acts and thereby omitting judgment, is without merit.
2. Judgment on Ground of Appeal No. 2 by the Defendant and Defense Counsel
Upon examining the evidence adopted by the first instance judgment, which was cited by the court below, against the record, the Defendant's criminal intent with respect to the facts constituting the crime of property damage in this case can be sufficiently found, and the act of property damage does not appear to constitute a legitimate act not in violation of social norms or an act of self-help. Therefore, the argument that the judgment below is unlawful for violating the rules of evidence or for omitting judgment on this point is also without merit.
3. Judgment on Grounds of Appeal No. 3 (a) and (b) by the Defendant and Ground of Appeal No. 3 by Defense Counsel
As lawfully established by the court below,
the Defendant, in conspiracy with approximately 70 union members, occupied the main gate of the Company's Pyeongtaek factory by force, locked it with a padlock prepared in advance to seal it off, and thereafter blocked the approach of the Company's security guards, and either partially or entirely controlled the entry and exit of transport vehicles mobilized by the Company, or blocked the entry and exit of vehicles mobilized by persons operating the Company's agency stores, thereby obstructing the Company's or the agency operators' product transport business.
Even if such conduct, as argued, was a measure to control the Company's scheme—amid the Company's insincere attitude in collective bargaining—to hire outside personnel to remove products or to continue business operations through substitute manpower for the purpose of nullifying the strike decided upon by the labor union, and thereby to neutralize the strike,
the means and methods employed were not merely passive impediments to the normal operation of business, but constituted active obstruction of business through the force of numbers or physical coercion, and thus must be regarded as exceeding the legitimate bounds of a labor dispute act.
Therefore, the argument that the judgment below is unlawful for erroneously interpreting the law regarding labor dispute acts is also without merit.
4. Judgment on Ground of Appeal No. 3 (c) by the Defendant and Ground of Appeal No. 4 by Defense Counsel
Upon examining the evidence adopted by the first instance judgment, which was cited by the court below, against the record, it can be sufficiently found that approximately 40 union members, in conspiracy with the Defendant, continuously occupied the corridor near the elevator entrance on the 8th floor of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Building for 12 days and staged a sit-in, thereby obstructing, by force, the normal business operations of the employees of the Sebang International Law Office, which leased space on the 8th floor of the same building. Therefore, the argument that the judgment below is unlawful for erroneously interpreting the law regarding the crime of obstruction of business is also without merit.
5. Judgment on Ground of Appeal No. 4 by the Defendant and Ground of Appeal No. 5 by Defense Counsel
According to Article 30 of the Labor Union Act (노동조합법) and Article 9-2 of the Enforcement Decree of the same Act, the administrative authority may require the labor union in question to submit its accounting records and other related documents for inspection, not only when there is a petition or complaint against the labor union concerned, but also when there is a need to guide the union's accounting and financial status or other aspects of its operation.
According to the relevant evidence and the record, the administrative authority's demand for the submission of materials and the inspection of the operations of the above labor union was made in accordance with the aforementioned statutory provisions, and it does not appear to have been unlawful or improper as argued.
Therefore, the argument that the judgment below, which found the Defendant guilty for refusing to submit the relevant documents and refusing the inspection, is unlawful for erroneously interpreting the law regarding Article 30 of the Labor Union Act, is also without merit.
6. Judgment on Ground of Appeal No. 5 by the Defendant
Upon examining the relevant evidence against the record, it cannot be said that, when the Defendant, together with approximately 80 union members, entered the central party headquarters of the Party for Peace and Democracy (평화민주당), a place other than the workplace in question, and staged a sit-in there, there was absolutely no purpose of demanding an investigation into the truth and expressing protest by asserting to the Party for Peace and Democracy that the workers' legitimate exercise of rights had been trampled upon by the unjust mobilization of public power, as argued.
However, it can be sufficiently found that the main purpose was to move the location of the labor dispute act to a place where it would be difficult to mobilize police force, in order to press the employer to accept the labor union's demands regarding working conditions.
Therefore, the argument that the judgment below, which regarded such conduct as part of a labor dispute act, is unlawful for erroneously interpreting the law regarding labor dispute acts, is also without merit.
7. Accordingly, the opinions of the participating Justices being unanimous, it is decided to dismiss the Defendant's appeal and to include a portion of the detention period after the appeal in the principal sentence of the judgment below, as stated in the Order.
Justice Yoon Kwan (Presiding Justice), Choi Jae-ho, Kim Ju-han, Kim Yong-jun