노조법상 근로시간면제제도 시행 이후의 법리적 쟁점

Abstract

After enforcement of the amended Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act, the time near about 2 years have passed. The new TULRAA, passed through the National Assembly in January 1, 2010, completely prohibited employers from paying wages to full-time union officials and introduces the time-off system from July 1, 2010. Under this new system, workers are allowed to take time-off from working conduct the functions of maintaining and operating a trade union for the sound development of labor-management relations and to engage in bargaining & consultation with their employer, grievance handling, occupational safety activities, etc., without any loss of pay as long as they do not exceed the maximum time-off limit, if it is prescribed by the collective agreement or agreed upon by the employer. The maximum time-off limit has been announced by the Minister of Labor at May 14, 2010 after deliberation which has been decided by the Time-off System Deliberation Committee at sixes and sevens in May 1, 2010. The amendment have the pursuit of settling the age-old industrial relations issues through tripartite agreement in a way to observe the basic principles of industrial relations and to guarantee as much labor- management autonomy and responsibility as possible. So the time-off system should be expounded emphasizing labor-management autonomy and responsibility in their implementation. But trade unions raised critical issues continuously over the ban on wage payment to full-time union officials and convenience support to trade union, the need for labor-management autonomy and serious discussion should be raised in order to ensure their smooth and flexible implementation. Nowadays, there are some conflicts between lower courts concerning about the validity of amendment order of collective agreement from Ministry of Employment and Labor for conveniences providing to trade unions. These conflicts would be settled down via final decisions of the Supreme Court sooner or later. But the former or exiting convenience supports from employer to trade union should not be estimated at unfair labor practices without the forfeit of trade union's independence. To make things worse, The MOEL's impetuous suspicion of unfair labor practices and repudiation of validity of collective agreement for Time-off System and convenience support to trade union would be rejection of the spirits of Labor-management Autonomy and collective laissez-faire.