부당해고 구제기관으로서의 노동위원회의 문제점과 그 대안에 대한 검토

An employment contract relationship is a judicial relationship, and an unfairly dismissed employee should get remedies at courts through civil litigations for nullity affirmation of discharges and for lost earnings. In Korea, however, the unfair dismissal relief application system to labor boards was introduced in 1989. Even though the system is very special in the world, the number of application cases has increased since it was introduced, and now lots of unfair dismissal cases come to courts as administrative cases after judgments of labor boards. The above mentioned unfair dismissal relief by labor boards has not only theoretical problems, however, but 5 tier procedure problems because disputes related unfair dismissals come to courts as a form of administrative litigation after they go through a district labor board and the Central Labor Board. Futhermore, Relief orders by labor boards have only public effect and employees have to bring another civil litigation if employers do not follow the relief orders Labor court plans, alternative plans to the problematic judgment functions of labor boards, based on discontent and prejudice to courts without an accurate analysis of real practices of courts. Especially, the lay judge system of labor court plans has lots of real problems. We should change labor boards, expert organizations of labor disputes, to organizations for conciliation and move judgment function of the boards to courts. And at this stage, it is more desirable to strengthen the function of existing labor specialization panels of courts and try various plans, and introduce appropriate systems in the long run, than to introduce a special court, the labor court directly.