교섭창구단일화절차를 둘러싼 노동법상 쟁점

Newly adopted plural unionism in 2010 in Korea appears to be fairly well organized, however, reveals many legal issues which need to be clarified. The new system purports a single bargaining table system to simplify the bargaining process demanded by multiple trade unions and to coordinate those demands. According to the law, it consists of three steps. First, you need to endeavor to make an arrangement for the single bargaining table based on mutual consent of concerned trade unions within 14 days after the employer make public all trade unions which demand bargaining. If the concerned trade unions cannot make an agreement for single bargaining table by themselves and there is a trade union which consists of absolute majority members of all concerned trade union, that trade union can represent all other trade unions. If not, all concerned trade union need to organize a joint bargaining agent. As it has been long prohibited to establish multiple trade unions in an enterprise over 50 years, the monopoly of trade union representation prevails in Korea. Therefore, this new system may give rise to many serious legal issues in the context of long-established tradition of bargaining monopoly in Korea. Some of these problems may include the concept of establishment and undertaking, the legal status of the chapter in an undertaking of an industrial trade union, the status and power of majority bargaining agent after it loses its majority status. In this paper I try to clarify these issues, however, it seems that some of them cannot be totally solved by statutory interpretation alone. For example, as so many substantial contents of the system are delegated to the decree instead of law itself, it may raise doubt that there is a doubt the system violates the rule of law. Therefore, I believe some of these issues need another legislative amendment.