장애인근로자의 최저임금 적용제외 문제와 입법⋅정책적 방안

Although the purpose of the 「Minimum Wage Act」 is to ensure the minimum level of wages for employees to stabilize their lives and improve the quality of their labor force, Article 7 of the 「Minimum Wage Act」 excludes application of the minimum wage and does not apply to “a person with significantly low ability to work due to mental or physical disabilities”. The problem is that the number of disabled workers who have been approved for exclusion from the minimum wage continues to increase, and the average monthly wage of disabled workers is much below the minimum wage and minimum living expenses. Therefore, the directions of legislative policy on the exclusion of the minimum wage for disabled workers may be approached from two main aspects. Firstly, while maintaining the regulations excluding the minimum wage for disabled workers as they are, the efforts are made to solve the low-income and low-wage problems of the disabled in the environments where there is not enough social safety net, such as the government’s 「Low-wage Support Plan for Workers with Vocational Rehabilitation Facilities」 plan. Secondly, the regulation excluding the minimum wage for disabled workers is abolished, and the minimum wage is applied or reduced to disabled workers like general emplyees. In this case, the minimum wage is applied to disabled workers in principle, but some of the minimum wage is subsidized by the government to employers, and the minimum wage is applied, excluded, or reduced as depending on the workplace. In particular, it can be said that it is reasonable to set the minimum wage at the amount different from the minimum wage by the Presidential Decree when the employer is approved by the Minister of Employment and Labor.