Doosan Motrol Wins Ordinary Wage Lawsuit… Supreme Court Rules "Company Standards Must Be Considered"

[Asia Economy Reporter Bae Kyunghwan] The Supreme Court has ruled that the capacity to pay additional wages recalculated based on ordinary wages should be judged based on the entire company.

On the 11th, the Supreme Court's 2nd Division (Presiding Justice Kim Sanghwan) overturned the lower court ruling that partially dismissed the plaintiffs in the wage payment lawsuit filed by 105 Doosan Motrol employees against the company, and sent the case back to the Busan High Court with a partial victory for the plaintiffs.

In August 2012, they filed a lawsuit against the company demanding payment of a difference of 1.1 billion KRW based on ordinary wages newly calculated by including regular bonuses and various allowances as wages stipulated by the Labor Standards Act.

The first trial partially ruled in favor of the workers. The court recognized regular bonuses, AS allowances, and technician allowances as ordinary wages, citing their fixed nature. However, it excluded paid adjustment allowances and annual leave adjustment allowances, ruling that the total wages the company had to pay amounted to about 1 billion KRW.

The second trial's judgment changed. The court stated that the company argued that recognizing regular bonuses as ordinary wages would affect management and accepted the principle of good faith only for the regular bonus portion. As a result, the second trial court recognized AS allowances and others for only six workers, ruling that the total wages the company had to pay amounted to 2 million KRW.

However, the Supreme Court did not accept the company's good faith argument, stating that Doosan Motrol (the business division) and Doosan (the defendant) should not be considered separately. The Supreme Court said, "The financial situation of the business division involved in this case, not the company itself, was used as the basis for the judgment," and added, "The lower court's judgment is difficult to accept."

It continued, "It is difficult to recognize objective circumstances that treat the business division as a separate legal entity distinct from the defendant," and said, "It is also hard to fully trust the figures such as the ratio of additional statutory allowances and additional labor cost burdens to net profit claimed by the defendant."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.