자원봉사자의 법적 지위와 보호 -노동법·사회보장법을 중심으로-

As the awareness of volunteer activities grows and volunteering has become active, the issue the boundary between volunteering and paid work is raised. While volunteering activities are conducted without the expectation of a certain amount of pay or reward, the outward aspect of providing labor does not differ when compared to the provision of labor by a worker. The Supreme Court’s previous decisions proposed the judgment criteria for the employment status, that is, the judgment criteria for recognizing the subordinate labor relationship, were composed as a theory. However, as the essence of determining whether an activity is a provision of labor or volunteering activity is complex and varies, it is not easy to judge which case corresponds to a labor or a volunteer in labor provision relationships. Not only are such strict criteria unsuitable for embracing and judging all of the diverse labor supply forms in reality, but it is also impossible to distinguish which judgment factors are the key judgment criteria. Therefore, it is necessary to relax the content of subordination in particular among the details of the subordinate labor relationships to make it suited to the labor provision forms of the contemporary times. When judging from an objective perspective whether labor would have been indeed provided as volunteering without money or other articles involved in the volunteering activity, a similarity is recognized because the expectation of compensation between labor and money or other articles is recognized. Moreover, if it is not appropriate to set the amount of a minimum wage by making an exception of determining the amount of a minimum wage in the Minimum Wage Act, it is necessary to set the minimum wage of a volunteer separately. Since volunteers are also exposed to the risk of disasters similar to regular workers, they must be protected through the occupational health and safety insurance as the minimal protection for disasters volunteers may face. In addition, the application of the Occupational Safety and Health Act must be reviewed for volunteers who are exposed to hazards and dangers. Hence, because the essence of labor embodies complexity that cannot be identified merely by understanding the simple phenomenon of subordinate labor as in the past, efforts must be made to grasp and reflect the employment status that has shifted according to the change of times.