노동분쟁 해결시스템의 국제비교와 한국 제도의 개선방안

As industrial societies are marked by misaligned understanding between labor and management, it is important to put in place a dispute settlement mechanism that can handle such disagreements in an efficient and effective manner. This study aims to compare the Labor Relations Commission of Korea, the Employment Tribunal and the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Services of the UK and the Labor Court of Germany to seek ways to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the current mechanism. Several aspects of the different countries' mechanisms are reviewed for the purpose of comparative analysis. First, to compare the level of efficiency, the process of dispute settlement, the rate of settlement per process, the duration and cost of the process are reviewed. Second, to compare the reliability of fairness, the rate of reconciliation as a way of dispute settlement is assessed. Third, to compare the level of expertise of the system, the dispute settlers' career and qualifications are reviewed, as well as the scope of the settlement. A number of characteristic differences are identified from the three-country comparison. First, compared to Korea, the UK and German mechanisms lead to more reconciliation. For individual labor-management disputes, the principle of reconciliation is applied which seems to lead to a higher rate. On the other hand, Korea is found to be quicker in its process as it relies on legal judgement. Second, comparison of expertise shows that the officials of UK and Germany mostly are given standard worker status, and thus have accumulated more experience and fulfill a certain level of qualifications. In comparison, the Korean officials mostly have non-permanent public-good status, with relatively less experience. Third, the members recommended by the labor and management groups in the UK and Germany personally participate in the settlement process and serve as a guarantor of fairness, while in Korea they tend to serve more as a spokesperson for one side. Based on the comparative analysis of the three countries, the following recommendations are offered for the Korean system: to promote the reconciliation process for individual disputes; to improve fairness and reliability of the decision of the LRC; to adopt permanent membership principle for the members responsible for mediation or adjudication; to improve expertise of the permanent members and inspectors; and to enhance neutrality of the members recommended by labor and management groups.