단체교섭의 자유를 박탈하는 교섭창구단일화제도 비판

In August 2025, the Korean National Assembly adopted the amendment to the Trade Union and Labour Relations Adjustment Act (hereafter, ‘TULRAA’). The essence of this amendment is to expand the scope of definitions of “employer” (section 2) and so on. The Constitution of the Republic of Korea proclaims that workers shall have the right to organise, collective bargaining and collective action, for improving working conditions [Art. 33 Para. 1]. While the TULRAA does not provide a detailed definition of “employer”, courts had held that the status of employer should be determined on a basis of employment relationship. As workers in multi-party work relationships have increasingly formed unions and fought against ‘principal contractors’ liability since the late 1990s, the courts' view has gradually changed to acknowledge an entity in a position to determine or control the working conditions as an ‘employer’. Following such developments in the legal precedents and workers’ fights, the 2025 amendment adds the following paragraph to the definition of “employer”: “In this connection, a person who is in a position to substantially and specifically control and determine the worker's working conditions, whether being parties to an employment contract or not, is considered an employer within such scope”. In Korea, on the other hand, collective bargaining with principal contractors or lead firms was considered to be in conflict with the dominant single-employer bargaining system that based on a binary employment relationship between a worker and a direct employer. In particular, pursuant to the TULRAA (as amended in 2010), trade unions, regardless of how they are organised, are required to follow the mandatory procedures for “unification of bargaining agents”. Only a “representative bargaining agent” is permitted to bargain with an employer and sign a collective agreement. As a result, minority unions are deprived of the right to collective bargain and collective action. Ahead of the enforcement of the amended TULRAA, the Government and Labour Relations Commissions revised the Presidential Decree, to impose new restrictions on bargaining with the amended “employer”, beyond the scope of application of current procedures. This article looks into the history of legal restrictions on the union structure and the level of collective bargaining, and shows that the mechanism for unifying bargaining agent has played a significant role in confining union activity into single-employer bargaining at separate corporate entities. Hence, this article criticizes such law and regulations as unconstitutional, and an infringement of freedom of association. It concludes that law shall not determine the boundary of workers’ organising, and must promote union activity to organize and represent workers across industry or supply chains.