지침 등을 통한 노동관계 개입에 관한 검토

Today, administration is becoming more and more complex, specialized and technologized, therefore administrative rulemaking cannot be denied. Administrative rulemaking can cope with the rapid changes in administrative phenomena in modern countries. Administrative ministries have the authority to enact ministerial ordinances. In addition to that, ministries may enact and revise internal regulations necessary for the enforcement of jurisdictional Acts and its interpretation standards of relevant Acts and subordinate statutes. This is the same for the Ministry of Employment and Labor (hereinafter referred to as MOEL). MOEL, as one of the central administrative ministries, enacts the enforcement regulations, namely, ministerial ordinances of each Act under the delegation of the Acts related to labor law. In addition, MOEL enacts and implements a number of regulations under various names such as ‘guidelines, examples, instructions, directives, rules, bulletins, manuals and the like’ (hereinafter collectively referred to as ‘guidelines’) for establishing criteria for internal affairs treatments, administrative supervisions, and administrative guidance. There are even hundreds of guidelines that are currently being implemented in the area of labor-management. Among the guidelines, there are administrative rules for the enforcement of Acts and subordinate statutes, or the treatments of internal affairs, but there are also many whose legal basis and legal character are not clear. Generally, guidelines belong to administrative rules, but there are also guidelines those are not administrative rules. For example, the 「Guidelines for the Calculation of Normal Wages」, 「Guidelines for the Interpretation and Operation of Work Rules」, and the 「Manual of Affairs for Collective Labor Relations」 were enacted without specific legal grounds and distributed to the labor-management parties in the name of administrative guidance. These guidelines have an influence on labor-management parties, and leads to an impact on labor relations. This is especially true because employers rely on the guidelines by applying them to workers to operate their businesses. These are enacted just by inside of MOEL, but not administrative rules. It is because these guidelines are neither for the treatments of internal affairs, nor for the enforcement of Acts and subordinate statutes. If the Acts and subordinate statutes don’t grant any authority to the Minister of Employment and Labor or public officials, then there will be no affairs to be carried out by them. Even in this case, guidelines are also created. These guidelines do not basically impose a certain duty to do or not to do something on a particular person, but they may induce him/her to act in accordance with the expectation of the administrative agencies by influencing the formation of his/her intention. This type of administration function belongs to an informal administration action. This kind of informal administration action is enforced to labor-management parties especially in the name of administrative guidance. In other words, MOEL distributes these guidelines to the workplace and instructs labor-management parties to follow them. Besides that, MOEL provides administrative guidance to labor-management parties for implementation of them. The guidelines are not administrative disposition, but just informal administrative action. They have neither legal grounds, nor legal binding force. Nevertheless, it is almost impossible for employers to ignore them and run a business. It is because MOEL has a superior power relationship with employers, in other words, in effect compulsory. By the way, if its contents are different from Acts or Precedents, labor relations can be distorted. In addition, it is very difficult to file lawsuits against the guidelines themselves, because there exists just informal administrative action without administrative disposition, consequently, there is almost no possibility to take remedies through administrative appeals or litigations. If the government uses the guidelines with an intention to make labor relations flow to a certain direction, labor relations distortion can be more facilitated. Nevertheless, why the guidelines are still enacted and implemented? After the collapse of the industrial structure during the Japanese Colonial Period and the Korean War, South Korea’s (hereafter, Korea) industrialization was pursued for economic development under the dictatorship regime from the 1960s to the 1980s. In this process, labor relations were not autonomously established, but formed by government’s orientation. The oppression of labor-management autonomy was carried out in a way of suppressing the labor movement under the name of national reconstruction and economic development. Anyway, Korea's present economy grew amazingly through development dictatorship. Nevertheless, there seems to be an intention of the government to intervene in labor relations and to form the order of labor relations in a certain direction. However, the way to achieve such a goal has been refined in a way through administrative rulemaking such as guidelines. It is not appropriate for the government to actively engage in labor relations, which are basically civil relations. It seems that the role of the government has to be such as to enforce labor inspection for employers who do not comply with basic labor standards, to create jobs, to make an environment for labor-management autonomy, and to activate industries. It would be interesting to examine the legal issues on the government intervention in labor relations through guidelines in the perspective of what is the role of the state.