방위산업체 근로자의 연장근로 거부행위와 쟁의성 - 대상판결: 대법원 2022. 6. 9. 선고 2016도11744 판결 -

The Constitution of the Republic of Korea stipulates that the right to collective action of workers employed by important defense industries may be either restricted or denied under the conditions as prescribed by Act. The application of the Labor Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act is determined, whether workers’ refusal of overtime work is industrial action. The target judgment determined that the worker’s refusal of overtime work was not recognized as industrial action, and based on that, the overtime work was carried out by receiving an application from the company when necessary, and overtime work and holiday work were not done on ‘certain days’. Those were not the business operations in accordance with ‘usual’ or ‘practice’. However, if overtime or holiday work has been legally implemented at the request of workers for business needs, it not only protects the workers’ right to consent more deeply in specific situations but also, even if such work is not periodically on a specific day performed, as it was generally done for business necessary, it is appropriate to regard as a protect-worthy ‘normal operation of a business’. In particular, in the case of workers engaged in important defense industries, if national security and land defense are not sufficiently guaranteed, the protection of the Constitution and the integrity of the land cannot be secured, and there is a risk that the purpose of guaranteeing the basic rights of the people will fundamentally fall apart. So the Constitution of the Republic of Korea, which is the upper legal form of the law, directly restricts the collective action rights of workers engaged in important defense industries. The purpose of the Constitution and the need for protection should be considered more carefully.