[Defendants] Defendant 1 and 2 others
[Appellants] Defendants
[Defense Counsel] Attorney Yoon Jong-hyun and 3 others
[Judgment Below] Seoul Criminal District Court Decision 90No2181, decided June 5, 1990
[Order]
All appeals are dismissed.
[Reasoning] Regarding the Grounds of Appeal by Defense Counsel
1. The so-called three labor rights (노동3권) declared in Article 33, Paragraph 1 of the Constitution (헌법) are fundamental rights of livelihood for workers, and it goes without saying that they must be respected and protected to the maximum extent. However, the establishment of sound labor-management relations and the settlement of industrial peace, which the labor relations laws aim to achieve, must be realized through peaceful acts of dispute conducted in accordance with the prescribed lawful procedures based on autonomous dialogue and compromise between labor and management, together with continued collective bargaining accompanying such acts of dispute. In no case should acts of dispute involve violence or destructive acts. Accordingly, even though the acts of the Defendants in this case were committed in the course of a labor dispute conducted by the labor union of the National Pension Management Corporation (국민연금관리공단) to which they belonged, the institution of this public prosecution, which specifies acts constituting elements of a crime as the facts charged, cannot be said to essentially infringe upon the right to collective action guaranteed by the Constitution, nor can it be said to violate the principle of equality under Article 11, Paragraph 1 [note: cited in the original as Article 1, Paragraph 1] of the Constitution, nor can it be said to violate Article 6 of the Labor Dispute Adjustment Act (노동쟁의조정법), which prescribes the duties of the government. Furthermore, whether the Defendants' acts in this case fall within the scope recognized as socially permissible is a matter to be examined in the substantive trial procedure, and is unrelated to the legality of the institution of the prosecution.
For the reasons stated above, the argument that the procedure for instituting this prosecution violates statutory provisions and is therefore invalid is without merit and cannot be accepted.
2. The court below, citing the evidence adopted by the first instance judgment, found it sufficient to recognize the fact that the Defendants, who were union executives, formed a Dispute Countermeasures Committee, resolved to strike, and had the executive body decide on occupying the office in a sit-in protest, blocking employees from going to work, and obstructing the work of sending out notices, etc., and that they conveyed this as the union executive's policy to union members through countermeasure committee members or branch chairs, while also selecting and supporting union members to carry this out, thereby directly or indirectly participating in each of the acts stated in the first instance judgment. Based on this, the court below recognized that the Defendants, in conspiracy and jointly with the co-conspirators named in the judgment, committed the obstruction of business set forth in Paragraph 1 of the judgment, the act of writing slogans in red spray paint on the wall of the chairman's office set forth in Paragraph 2, and the destruction of documents and obstruction of business set forth in Paragraph 3. This measure is acceptable. It cannot be said that the judgment below found facts without evidence or erred in its understanding of the legal doctrine of joint principal offenders through conspiracy.
3. Where an act of dispute exceeds the scope in which its legitimacy is recognized and thereby constitutes a criminal offense, no basis is found for giving special treatment on the ground that the act of dispute itself inherently involves collectivity and group nature.
According to the criminal facts found in the first instance judgment as cited by the judgment below, the Defendants, together with approximately 200 union members including the co-conspirators named in the judgment, trespassed into the office of the Seoul Branch of the National Pension Management Corporation and the head office of the Corporation. This clearly constitutes an act falling under the elements of the crime of trespassing into a building "through the force of numbers" (다중의 위력으로) as prescribed in Article 3, Paragraph 1 of the Act on the Punishment of Violence, etc. (폭력행위등처벌에관한법률). There is no error in the application of law as argued in the grounds of appeal in the judgment below.
4. An act of dispute refers to an act performed by a party to a labor relationship for the purpose of achieving its demands, and a counter-act thereto, which impedes the normal operation of business (see Article 3 of the Labor Dispute Adjustment Act). Among these, an act of dispute conducted by a worker as an exercise of the right to collective action against an employer is exempted from illegality under criminal law, and thus not punished, only when it is legitimate (Article 2 of the Trade Union Act (노동조합법)).
Here, the limits of the legitimacy of an act of dispute are as follows: first, the subject must be a labor union with the capacity to conclude collective agreements; second, the purpose must be to foster autonomous negotiation between labor and management for the improvement of working conditions; and third, the means or methods must be limited to passively impeding the normal operation of business so as to cause damage to the employer. Looking at a strike, which can be regarded as the most typical type of dispute act among the specific types of dispute, this is a means of dispute having a passive character in which all labor that a worker is obligated to provide under the labor contract is temporarily refused, in accordance with the unified decision-making of the labor union, and thus, unless it bears some other element of illegality, it may be evaluated as legitimate. However, strikes are often accompanied by picketing in order to secure and strengthen the effectiveness of the work stoppage, or accompanied by occupation of the workplace in the form of sitting in and staying at the workplace. In such cases, picketing, as an auxiliary means of dispute, is recognized as legitimate only within the scope of peaceful persuasion—verbal persuasion by speech or in writing—directed at those who do not join the strike and wish to continue working; forcible obstruction or physical coercion by means of assault, intimidation, or force cannot be justified. Occupation of the workplace is a means of dispute whereby workers remain at the workplace against the will of the employer, without leaving, in order to prevent obstruction by the employer during the strike and to respond swiftly to changing circumstances; its legitimacy is recognized only where it is a partial and coexisting occupation that does not entirely exclude the employer's possession and does not obstruct the employer's business operations. Occupation exceeding this, that is, a comprehensive and exclusive occupation of the employer's business facilities over a long period, must be regarded as unjust as an infringement upon the employer's authority to manage its facilities.
Viewing the Defendants' acts from this perspective, the act of blocking employees from going to work by means of intimidation as stated in Paragraph 1 of the first instance judgment, and the act of obstructing the work of sending out notices by means such as seizing the notices as stated in Paragraph 3, must be deemed unlawful as exceeding the limits of the legitimacy of picketing discussed above, even taking into account the various circumstances argued in the grounds of appeal. The act of trespassing into the building as stated in Paragraph 2 and the obstruction of business caused by occupying the office in a sit-in protest over a long period must be evaluated as unlawful acts, having reached the level of comprehensively and exclusively depriving the employer Corporation of its authority to manage its business premises. It is self-evident, without need for further explanation, that the act of destroying property in the course thereof falls outside the scope of the legitimacy of an act of dispute.
The measure by which the court below found the Defendants guilty of the charged facts, based on the foregoing purport, is justified, and it cannot be said that there is an error in the judgment below in its understanding of the legal doctrine concerning justifiable acts under Article 2 of the Trade Union Act and Article 20 of the Criminal Code (형법), as argued in the grounds of appeal. The argument is without merit.
Accordingly, all appeals are dismissed, and it is so decided as stated in the Order by the unanimous opinion of the participating Justices.
Justice Yoon Young-cheol (Presiding Justice), Park Woo-dong, Lee Jae-sung, Kim Yong-jun