프랑스의 근로시간법제에 관한 비교연구: 연장근로특례를 중심으로

Abstract

In Korea, employers have large possibilities to make their employees to work more than 52 hours per week under the Labor Standard Act; article 53 paragraph 1 of this Act permits employers to extend working time up to twelve hours per week, with consent of their employees; they may also extend the overtime further, if they gain authorization of the Minister of Labor and consent of their employees under article 53 paragraph 3; besides, they can make the employees to work even to 64 hours in a certain week, when they utilize flexible working time system in accordance with article 51 paragraph 2. In addition, under article 59 of this Act, the employers, who belong to the industries specified, may make their employees to work in excess of the overtime limit, i. e. 12 hours per week, with the written agreement between them and the employees' representative. This provision gives the employers another kind of possibility to use their labor forces from the same employees, but it causes the practices of long time working and could damage the safety and health of the employees. And long time working of some one could result in lack of opportunities of working for others. That's why some questions were asked by the labor unions, such as Korean Automobile & Transport Workers' Federation: if the special overtime under article 59 is really necessary or not, and if this exception is needlessly so wide or not. In order to solve these questions, I tried to compare our legal systems to french labor laws relating working time and find any suggestions from it. I summarize some characteristics of french labor law concerning working time, as follows: - It provides for definitions of some important words, such as «working time», «in active part of on call time», and «equivalent working time». - It provides for «annual total amount of overtime». - It has special derogations of overtime system; these derogations are realized by collective conventions or by administrative provisions. But they are limited by maximum weekly working time, i. e. the average weekly working time including overtime shall not exceed 44 hours ; any weekly working time shall not exceed 48 hours, except for extraordinary circumstances causing temporarily exceeding surplus of work. - It provides for «replacement of overtime by compensatory rest» and «obligatory compensatory rest». In conclusion, I think that there is a need to limit the special overtime in article 59 of the LSA by means of introducing obligatory compensatory rest or imposing maximum weekly working time on it.