[Plaintiff, Appellee] As stated in the list of plaintiffs in the attached sheet.
[Defendant, Appellant]
[Judgment Below] Seoul High Court Decision 2009Na28150 rendered on January 8, 2010
[Order]
The part of the judgment below against which the Defendant lost is reversed, and this part of the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court.
[Reasoning] The grounds of appeal are examined.
Pursuant to Article 29(1) of the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act (노동조합 및 노동관계조정법; hereinafter referred to only as the “Trade Union Act”), the representative of a trade union has the authority to negotiate with an employer or employers' association and to conclude collective agreements on behalf of the trade union or its members, and any full and comprehensive restriction on such representative's authority to conclude collective agreements is contrary to Article 29(1) of the Trade Union Act (see Supreme Court en banc Decision 91Nu12257 rendered on April 27, 1993, etc.).
However, in light of the following points: a collective agreement has normative effect that directly determines the standards concerning working conditions and other treatment of individual union members, and thus the substantive holder of rights and obligations under a collective agreement is the workers themselves; accordingly, it is a fundamental requirement of collective bargaining that a collective agreement be concluded based on the will of the trade union formed through the participation of its members; and Article 16(1)(3) of the Trade Union Act designates matters concerning collective agreements as matters to be resolved by the general meeting, so that the trade union representative may formulate a bargaining plan through the general meeting before commencing collective bargaining or may continuously gather the collective will of the members during the course of collective bargaining—in view of these points, it must be held that it is permissible for a trade union to procedurally restrict the exercise of its representative's authority to conclude collective agreements, such as by requiring internal procedures under its rules, etc., in order to reflect the will of its members and to properly control the representative's performance of duties in conducting collective bargaining and concluding collective agreements, as long as such restriction does not amount to a full and comprehensive restriction on the authority to conclude collective agreements.
However, even though the substantive holder of rights and obligations under a collective agreement is, as stated above, the workers, and the trade union representative bears an obligation to reflect the will of the union members in concluding a collective agreement, the trade union representative, as an organ that executes the affairs of and represents the trade union pursuant to the union's mandate, bears only the duty of care of a good manager as a mandatary vis-à-vis the trade union, and cannot be deemed to bear the duty of care of a good manager arising from a mandate relationship vis-à-vis individual union members.
Nevertheless, the court below, on the contrary, premised its judgment on the assumption that the trade union representative bears the duty of care of a good manager as a mandatary vis-à-vis individual union members, and held that the Defendant is liable for damages arising from a breach of the duty of care of a good manager, on the ground that the Defendant concluded the collective agreement at issue in this case, containing terms revised unfavorably compared to the previous terms concerning working conditions that had never even been discussed during the bargaining process, without going through the internal procedures prescribed by the union's rules at issue in this case, thereby causing mental distress to the Plaintiffs, who are union members. Such judgment by the court below contains an error of law that misapprehends the legal principles concerning the relationship between a trade union representative and individual union members, thereby affecting the judgment. The argument in the grounds of appeal to this effect is well-founded.
Therefore, the part of the judgment below against which the Defendant lost is reversed, and this part of the case is remanded to the court below for further hearing and determination. This judgment is rendered as stated in the Order by the unanimous opinion of the participating Justices.
[[Attached Sheet] List of Plaintiffs: Omitted]
Justices Lee In-bok (Presiding Justice), Min Il-young, Park Bo-young, Kim Shin (Justice in charge)