근로기준법 제정심의의 주요쟁점

This article primarily attempts to clarify the critical issues in terms of the establishment of the Labour Standard Act (LSA) of 1953 and the spirit of the legislation. Accordingly, the subject and range of this study are major issues at the consideration for the enactment of LSA by mainly analyzing the stenographic record of the Second National Assembly (SNA). The most crucial points at the consideration on the enactment of LSA were working time regulations (particularly, additional overtime pay and principle on prohibition of night work), minimum wage, and family allowance. Other major point at issue might be continuous argument with respect to feasibility of the enforcement of LSA. In addition, it is argued that LSA was enacted on the basis of systematic and serious debate in Korean legislature even if in the turmoil of the Korean War at the refuge capital Pusan, in contrast to the existing view that LSA was the product of a hasty and near exact copy of Japanese counterpart based on the legislative proposal by the Government. As a matter of substance, working time regulations were regarded as a crucial issue in the consideration of establishing LSA due to the sharp conflict of opinions on that between pro-labor and pro-management in SNA. It might be considered that the provision of working time limitations on hazardous work established as the Original Bill of LSA (OB), and those of additional overtime pay and the principle on prohibition of night work on female and young workers passed according to the Revised Bill of the LSA (RB) as working time regulations on the whole. Despite the various efforts that pro-management side in SNA tried to deteriorate the standard of protection on working time, for instance, in deleting the working time limitations on hazardous work and prohibition of night work on female and young workers by their RBs, it was frustrated by strong arguments of the members of SNA representing the interests of workers. This result is likely to be evaluated that normative approach to legislation of LSA was highly supported in SNA. Nevertheless, persistent arguments of skepticism on the feasibility of the enforcement while considering the enactment of LSA was likely to be the most unusual phenomenon as well as a ‘legislative irony.’ Although the pro-management side had made continuous proposals of deferring the consideration and even postponing the enforcement of LSA indefinitely, the skepticism was overcome and LSA was able to be enacted in the end, mainly by the efforts of Jin Han Jeon and Sang Sup Uhm, the members of SNA. The eighteen most critical issues in RBs might be summed up as seven issues passed in their original forms and eleven issues, the rest of them, passed in their revised forms. Out of the eleven issues passed as RBs, the Social Health Committee of SNA produced six issues such as additional overtime pay, the pro-management side made three issues such as deleting a section of monthly paid sick leave, and the pro-labor side proposed two issues such as a claim for damages to the violation of labor standards. Hence, it is likely to be concluded that the arguments from both labor and management sides of SNA were relatively equally reflected to LSA. Furthermore, it is also characterized that the Social Health Committee’s RBs (on six issues) and the RBs of both labor and management sides (on five issues) were adopted to LSA in a balanced way. It was able to be found that this tendency of equal participation of both pro-labor and pro-management to the legislation from the seven issues passed in their original forms as well. It might hence be concluded that, despite the different opinions of pro-labor and pro-management sides, both parties in the Assembly had participated equally and vigorously in the establishment of LSA on the basis of balanced view-points, expert knowledge, and critical legal reasoning.