임금채권에 대한 양육비직접지급명령제도에 대한 노동법적 관점에서의 고찰 ― 노동법상의 임금채권보호원칙과의 바람직한 조화 내지 발전방향을 모색하면서 ―

Family Litigation Act was revised to enact a child support enforcement order. The order can be issued upon arrearage of at least two times of a child support duties. It can enforce withholding from income of amounts payable as support, without the need for any other judicial or administrative hearing. This enactment was mainly influenced by the similar laws of the U.S.A., U.K., and Japan, the purpose of which is to secure the child support enforcement. I have reviewed the new law from the perspective of labor law, mainly focusing on the protection of the wage claims regulated by the Labor Standards Act. According to the Labor Standards Act, wages should be paid directly in full to workers, and hence the newly revised support order can be a great exception to the principle of direct and full wage payment. Under the current laws, both child support claims and wage payment claims are strongly protected compared with other claims. However, problems can arise when the two specially protected claims conflict with each other. We can even suppose some extreme cases where the parent worker's necessary living expenses surpass the amount of the income deducted by the support order. The relevant laws do not specifically deal with such cases, but they have a maximum ratio limit of wage payment seizure, which limit is translated to be applied to the newly enacted child support order as well, as there is no other special regulations on it. The laws also specially protect the minimum cost of living of a person, but they do not specifically mention any further about the coordination of the parent worker's welfare and the child's necessary support level. I have thought about the coordination of the two sometimes conflicting demands of the specially protected claims of both sides. Child support is primarily the responsibility of the parent workers, but social welfare system should also take part in the child support in cases where the parents alone do not have sufficient financial resources to fulfill the duty. In this regards, we need some more detailed legal guidelines about how and when the social welfare system functions in cases of insufficient implementation of a child support order enforcement. The AFDC(Aid to Families with Dependent Children : AFDC) of the U.S.A. from 1935 to 1996 can be one of such models of legislation. In addition to the coordination of the two specially protected claims, there are other relevant legal matters from the perspective of labor law. I have reviewed such matters as whether to allow any retroactive claim of a child support order, whether to admit a child support claim on retirement benefits, national pension benefits, industrial accident compensation insurance benefits, etc.