Supreme Court: "Wage System Changes Without Staff Consent Are Not Recognized"

Court: "Disadvantageous Changes in Employment Rules"

The Supreme Court has ruled that changing the wage system without the consent of faculty and staff constitutes an unfair change under the employment rules.

The Supreme Court's Second Division (Presiding Justice Cheon Dae-yeop) announced on the 1st that it upheld the appellate court's ruling partially in favor of the plaintiffs in the wage claim lawsuit filed by nine professors of Daejeon University against the school foundation Hyehwa Academy.

Daejeon University had maintained a seniority-based pay system since its founding but switched to a performance-based pay system in 2007. As a result, the previous wage increase rates were disregarded, and wages were differentiated based on performance evaluations.

In response, the nine professors raised the issue that the procedure to obtain the consent of the majority of faculty and staff was not followed and filed a lawsuit.

The first trial court pointed out that there was no majority consent procedure from the professors during the process of changing the employment rules. The court ruled, "This goes against the legislative intent of the Labor Standards Act to protect workers and is difficult to consider reasonable according to social norms."

The appellate court also ruled that "the professors never agreed to the performance-based pay regulations through collective decision-making, so the changed pay regulations have no effect on the faculty of Daejeon University," ordering the university to pay the professors approximately 210 million won.

The Supreme Court also agreed with the appellate court's judgment, stating, "The establishment of the new pay regulations constitutes a disadvantageous change under the employment rules, and since proper consent was not obtained, it is not recognized as reasonable according to social norms."

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