"Continued Wage Disadvantages Constitute a Single Act"

[Ruling]

The Supreme Court has established a new legal principle regarding the calculation of the three-month application period for remedies under Article 82(2) of the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act, specifically concerning the meaning of a "continuing act." The Court determined that if wage disadvantages resulting from an employer's performance evaluations or missed promotions persist over a certain period, these can be regarded as a single continuing act, thereby making an application for remedy possible.

The Supreme Court's Special Division 1 (Presiding Justice Lee Heungku) on April 3 partially overturned the lower court's ruling, which had dismissed the plaintiffs' claims, in the appeal filed by the Korean Metal Workers' Union and others against the Central Labor Relations Commission regarding the cancellation of a remedial review decision for unfair labor practices. The case was remanded to the Daejeon High Court (2023Du41864).

View of the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul.

[Facts]

On August 30, 2019, the plaintiffs filed an application for remedy with the Regional Labor Relations Commission, claiming that "the companies to which the plaintiffs belong assigned lower performance evaluations to union members from 2015 to the first half of 2019, and failed to promote them from 2016 to 2019, which constitutes unfair control/intervention in union operations and unfair treatment."

However, the Regional Labor Relations Commission dismissed the application, stating, "The union members filed for remedy more than three months after being notified of their performance evaluations and promotion dates, and thus the application period had expired."

The plaintiffs then requested a review by the Central Labor Relations Commission. However, the Central Labor Relations Commission also dismissed the review, stating that the assignment of performance evaluations and promotions could not be regarded as continuing acts, and that the application period (three months from the notification dates?end of January 2019 for performance evaluations and March 1, 2019 for promotions) had already passed. Consequently, the plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in court seeking to cancel the remedial review decision for unfair labor practices.

[Issue]

The main issue was whether the assignment of lower performance evaluations, failure to promote, and the resulting discriminatory wage payments constituted a "continuing act" under Article 82(2) of the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act, and the scope of such an act.

Article 82 of the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act stipulates that workers or unions whose rights have been violated by an employer's unfair labor practices may apply for remedy to the Labor Relations Commission. The application must be filed within three months from the date of the unfair labor practice (or, in the case of a continuing act, from the date it ends).

[Lower Court Decisions]

The court of first instance accepted the plaintiffs' arguments and ruled in their favor.

However, the appellate court ruled against the plaintiffs, finding that the application for remedy filed on August 30, 2019, was submitted more than three months after the last promotion notification date of March 1, 2019, and thus exceeded the application period.

[Supreme Court Decision]

The Supreme Court determined that since the application for remedy was filed on August 30, 2019, while wages were still being paid based on the 2018 performance evaluations, the parts of the application concerning the 2018 performance evaluations and the wage disadvantages in 2019 were filed within the application period.

The Court found that the companies (to which the plaintiffs belong) conducted performance evaluations in 2018 (including the first and second half performance and competency evaluations, and the promotion notifications on March 1, 2019), and paid wages based on these from March 2019 to February 2020. Since these actions were carried out over the same period, they could be regarded as a single "continuing act."

The Supreme Court held that the plaintiffs' claims regarding "the 2018 performance evaluations (notified on June 30, 2018, and January 31, 2019) and the resulting wage payments" and "the failure to promote in 2018 (notified on March 1, 2019) and the resulting wage payments" were filed within the application period, and thus partially overturned and remanded the case.

The panel stated, "The appellate court should have examined whether there were any special circumstances that would justify considering the performance evaluations and wage payments in 2018, as well as those prior to 2017, as a single 'continuing act,' on the premise that the plaintiffs' application for remedy regarding the 2018 performance evaluations and wage payments in 2019 was within the application period. Based on this, the court should have canceled the parts of the review decision that recognized a series of actions as 'continuing acts.' However, the appellate court dismissed all of the plaintiffs' claims, finding that the entire application was filed after the application period had expired. This constitutes a misinterpretation of the law regarding the application period for remedy and the concept of 'continuing act,' resulting in a failure to conduct the necessary examination and affecting the outcome of the judgment."

Reporter: An Jaemyung, The Law Times

※This article is based on content supplied by Law Times.

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