근로자성을 지닌 임원의 퇴직금제도에 관한 노동법적 고찰

Abstract

As executive officers under the Commercial Act are deemed to be in a delegation relationship with the company, not an employment relationship, they are governed by the Civil Act and the Commercial Act instead of the labor law. However, non-registered executive officers holding such positions as a managing or executive director, despite being referred to as executive officers in practice, are subject to the labor laws because they are considered as workers who provide labor to an employer for wage purposes in a use-dependent relationship. Currently, in accordance with the executive retirement allowance regulations, many companies are applying retirement allowance rates that are two to six times higher than those applied to regular employees in paying retirement allowances to their executives, including not only registered executive officers under the Commercial Act but also non-registered executive officers. Since executive officers having an employee status are workers under Labor Standards Act, they are subject to the labor laws. Therefore, the executive retirement allowance regulations stipulating the matters relating to the retirement allowances of these executive officers can be said to correspond to the employment rules on Labor Standards Act. Despite the transition of the relationship between a company and its employee promoted to an executive officer into a delegation relationship after having severed the previous employment relationship, the validity of such a transition must be determined based on the actual substance of the relationship. A person holding concurrent positions in several companies as an executive officer and receiving retirement allowances from each of those companies is considered to be compensated unreasonably, disproportionate to his level of contribution. A provision for the prohibition of differentiation in the retirement allowance under the Act on the Guarantee of Workers’ Retirement Benefits applies to executive officers having an employee status. As such, in a case where it appears to be necessary to provide executive officers with higher compensation than regular employees by taking into account their job performance and accomplishments, the executive officers can be compensated with a high salary. The overpayment of the retirement allowance to executive officers having an employee status by applying a high retirement allowance rate than those applied to ordinary workers, thereby discriminating against the ordinary workers, is undesirable. A retirement allowance is originally intended to ensure a stable livelihood after retirement. Excessive retirement allowance of executive officers having an employee status compared to regular employees’ retirement allowances not only raises concern with regard to fairness in the distribution of corporate profits but also goes against the equity principle among individual workers.