{"id":15150,"date":"2026-05-13T09:09:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T09:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/15150\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T09:09:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T09:09:19","slug":"court-rules-hyundais-remote-work-cut-not-a-disadvantage-to-workers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/15150\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Rules Hyundai’s Remote Work Cut Not a Disadvantage to Workers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ClipartClipart Korea<\/p>\n

A South Korean court has rejected a union’s request to suspend Hyundai Motor’s decision to reduce remote work at its Namyang R&D Center from twice a week to once a week.<\/p>\n

According to labor sources on Wednesday, the 50th Civil Division of the Seoul Central District Court recently dismissed an injunction request filed by the Namyang R&D Center Committee of the Hyundai Motor branch of the Korean Metal Workers’ Union, under the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, against Hyundai Motor (005380.KS).<\/p>\n

The Namyang R&D Center implemented guidelines on January 1 reducing remote work from twice a week to once a week. The union filed the injunction with the court in December last year, arguing that the measure constituted a disadvantageous change to working conditions.<\/p>\n

The court sided with the company. The bench ruled that it was difficult to view the reduction in remote work as causing significant disadvantage to employees’ lives, and noted that the employment contract did not explicitly guarantee the right to a specific workplace. The court also considered that employees’ actual monthly average remote work frequency currently falls short of once a week.<\/p>\n

A key basis for the ruling was a provision in Hyundai Motor’s employment rules stating that “the company may order changes to a worker’s work location, affiliation, or duties based on business necessity.” The court held that the union had been aware in advance that work locations could change based on management’s judgment. The fact that the employment contract designated the “company’s business site” as the work location also influenced the decision to dismiss the request.<\/p>\n

Legal circles are paying attention to the ruling as the first judgment on the legal nature of remote work arrangements, which expanded after the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Korean Statistical Information Service (KOSIS), the number of remote workers in Korea stood at around 95,000 in 2019, before the pandemic, but rose to 519,000 last year.<\/p>\n

While many companies introduced remote work systems of two to three days a week during the pandemic, labor-management conflicts have continued as companies have pushed return-to-office policies since 2023. Kakao (035720.KS) also introduced its “Kakao On” system based on a full return-to-office principle after the pandemic, but currently allows one day of remote work per week following union pushback.<\/p>\n

Labor groups argue that remote work has already established itself as a new working practice. Companies, in contrast, have maintained that remote work is merely an operational method based on business needs and cannot be viewed as a fixed right of workers.<\/p>\n

However, analysts said the ruling could be overturned in the main lawsuit since it was made at the injunction stage. Korea’s current Labor Standards Act requires consent from a majority of workers or the union when employment rules are changed to the disadvantage of workers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Clipart Korea A South Korean court has rejected a union’s request to suspend Hyundai Motor’s decision to reduce…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[295,702,5264,3125,11021,8644,11022,11023,11024],"class_list":{"0":"post-15150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hyundai-motor","8":"tag-hyundai","9":"tag-hyundai-motor","10":"tag-korean-metal-workers-union","11":"tag-labor-dispute","12":"tag-namyang-rd-center","13":"tag-remote-work","14":"tag-return-to-office","15":"tag-seoul-central-district-court","16":"tag-work-from-home-policy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}