사업장 내 정신건강문제의 법적 고찰

In the 20th century, labor law focused on labor as subordination based on employment contract. Its point of view is limited to contract law and emphasizes the protection of employee. Labor law overlooked the power of employer at workplace and didn’t cover the employee’s legal status and occupation in business system. Labor law regards employment relations as rights and duties between equal legal persons, rather than dominating and dominated relationship. But in workplace employer plays a role of not a equal contracting party but a ruler like a patriarch or paterfamilias. Offering employee’s services is accompanied with employee’s body which is composed of corpus, mind and emotion. Employer have a duty to care employee in workplace. The care duty is covered with the obligations of safety consideration in workplace, not only for employee’s physical safety but also for employee’s mental safety. In recent years, labor control system targets at outstanding job performance and artificial selection through competition and stress. In this circumstances employees are susceptible to mental illness. This article shows that employee’s mental health problems is to some degree caused by the employer’s power at workplace which can be forced to employees. care workers or emotional workers are forced to express his or her feelings contrary to his or her heart. Workplace bullying or personnel management abusing infringe on employee’s personal right and mental health. This article concludes that the care duty of employer including the obligations of safety consideration in workplace for employee’s mental safety should be regarded as main duty not as subordinate duty.