근로자대표제의 문제점과 법적 개선방안

Abstract

Current constitutional law and labor law have systems through which workers can participate in the decisions and applications of particular working conditions using various methods, qualified as individuals or groups, but in reality, it is difficult for individual workers to make direct or indirect participations. Current worker participation systems in individual labor relationships have no unified systems or regulations and this is also true for individual labor laws such as the Labor Standards Act. Individual clauses among current regulations do not define concepts and simply use the terminology or use the term of ‘labor representative’ as a different concept. On one hand, establishments with 30 or more full-time workers from each business mandatorily install ‘joint labor-management conferences’ according to current laws on the promotion of worker participation and cooperation and perform regular consultations between labor and management but it is unclear whether joint labor-management conferences have the authority to determine the working conditions of individual workers within establishments and whether decisions made by the joint labor-management conference are effective. Because of this, there are a lot of cases in which roles overlap within labor law. In particular, there are no problems with ‘labor unions organized by majorities within establishments’ but in establishments with no majority labor unions, confusion regarding working condition changes and decisions related to labor representatives are occurring frequently. Situations in which decisions must be made with regard to diverse employment and working forms, reorganizations of working hours, and wage plans are increasing in business circles within management environments that are rapidly changing with the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, globalization, and digitization. To support the rapid working condition changes and decisions of most businesses and non-union enterprises that possess minority unions, the following improvement plans are presented. Labor representatives (ⅰ) must first organize the intersecting and overlapping roles of current worker majorities, majority representatives, and joint labor-management conferences for the uniform and systematic management of worker representation systems and for this, joint labor-management conferences that possess many conditions as worker representation systems must be utilized. (ⅱ) Worker representation systems must clarify their objectives so they do not compete with labor unions within establishments. (ⅲ) Participation opportunities of worker representation systems must be fairly granted so that there are no classes that have their participation opportunities unfairly infringed upon. (ⅳ) Worker representation systems must reinforce opportunities for collecting feedback from employees and must elect a total number of committee members in proportion to establishment workers. (ⅴ) Labor representatives must be elected even in establishments with less than 30 people and systematic opportunities must be guaranteed for workers of small and medium sized businesses to participate in working condition decisions. (ⅵ) Detailed labor representative election qualifications and election methods must be specified. (ⅶ) Labor representatives must be given actual authority to decide working conditions.