National Labor Relations Commission. Yonhap News
South Korea’s National Labor Relations Commission has recognized Incheon’s Bupyeong District as a bargaining counterpart for outsourced workers on matters related to how their work is performed. In a separate case, the commission overturned an earlier ruling and found that there was no need to create a separate bargaining unit at the Korea Student Aid Foundation.
The commission overturned a dismissal by a lower labor board in Bupyeong District’s request for a review of an order concerning the public notice of a bargaining demand, according to labor sources on the 11th.
The case arose from a bargaining demand over household waste collection in Bupyeong District. The Public Solidarity Union asked the district to publicly announce the bargaining demand, and when the district declined, the union filed for corrective action with the Incheon Regional Labor Relations Commission. The regional commission dismissed the request in June, but the national commission has now reversed that decision.
The commission recognized Bupyeong District’s status as a user beyond the direct contract with respect to the bargaining agenda on work methods put forward by the union. The finding means that even for outsourced workers the district does not directly employ, the district must serve as the union’s bargaining counterpart on matters concerning how the work is carried out.
The earlier ruling was also overturned in the Korea Student Aid Foundation case. In the foundation’s request for review of a bargaining-unit separation ruling, the commission found no justification for splitting the bargaining unit and canceled the earlier decision that had allowed the split. The North Gyeongsang Regional Labor Relations Commission had granted the General Service Workers’ Union’s request to separate the bargaining unit in June.
In the case involving the Taekwondo Promotion Foundation’s request for review of an order on the public notice of a bargaining demand, the commission upheld the earlier decision that recognized the union’s corrective request. Earlier, the Ministry of Employment and Labor’s collective bargaining advisory committee had found that the foundation did not qualify as an employer with respect to workers employed by its subsidiary. However, because the advisory committee is a consultative body, that process is separate from this labor commission case.