[Plaintiff, Appellee] Park Seong-ho
[Defendant, Appellant] Chairman of the National Labor Relations Commission (중앙노동위원회위원장)
[Intervenor for Defendant] Dongyang Mulsan Corporation, Attorneys Lee Young-su and one other, Counsel for the Intervenor
[Judgment Below]
Seoul High Court Decision 87Gu1135 rendered on May 6, 1988
[Order]
The judgment below is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court.
[Reasoning]
The grounds of appeal are examined.
(1) According to the reasoning of the judgment below, the court below held that the Plaintiff was an employee belonging to the sheet metal team of the manufacturing department of the Intervenor for Defendant company, and that Im Jeong-sik, deputy manager of the manufacturing team of Production Department 1 of the said company (who had been the Plaintiff's referrer at the time of the Plaintiff's employment with the said company), was in a position to supervise matters concerning the Plaintiff's work as an employee; therefore, the said Im Jeong-sik should be deemed to fall under "a person who acts on behalf of the employer with respect to matters concerning employees of the business," at least in his relationship with the Plaintiff. The court below thus held that the act of Im Jeong-sik, deputy manager of the manufacturing team of the Intervenor company, in causing the Plaintiff to submit a letter of resignation on the pretext of the Plaintiff's act of distributing a leaflet containing the content of his remarks and impressions made at the labor union delegates' assembly, constituted an act disadvantageous to the employee, and accordingly constituted an unfair labor practice as prescribed in Article 39, Item 1 of the Trade Union Act (노동조합법).
(2) However, Article 5 of the Trade Union Act provides that "employer" under this Act means "a business owner, a person responsible for the management of the business, or a person who acts on behalf of the business owner with respect to matters concerning employees of the business." Here, "a person who acts on behalf of the business owner with respect to matters concerning employees" means a person who has been granted certain authority and responsibility by the business owner with respect to matters such as the determination of working conditions, including personnel affairs, wages, welfare, and labor management of employees, or the issuance of work-related orders or the exercise of direction and supervision. Accordingly, whether the said Im Jeong-sik, deputy manager of the manufacturing team of the Intervenor company, falls under "a person who acts on behalf of the business owner with respect to matters concerning employees" must be determined according to whether he had been granted certain authority and responsibility by the business owner with respect to some matter concerning employees. Therefore, in determining whether the said Im Jeong-sik constitutes a so-called "employer," the court below should first have examined whether the said Im Jeong-sik was a person who had been granted certain authority and responsibility by the business owner with respect to some matter concerning employees. The court below, without going into this examination, concluded that the said Im Jeong-sik was an "employer" solely on the ground that, as deputy manager of the manufacturing team, he was in a position to supervise matters concerning employees' work. This constitutes an illegality due to insufficient examination and inadequate reasoning, or a misapprehension of the legal principles concerning "employer," and the argument pointing this out is well-founded.
Therefore, the judgment below is reversed, and the case is remanded to the court below, and it is so decided as stated in the Order by the unanimous opinion of the Justices participating in the decision.
Justices Bae Man-un (Presiding Justice), Kim Deok-ju, Yun Kwan, An U-man