No country holds an en banc session on every wage item

Supreme Court Chief Justice Cho Hee Dae has called for urgent legislation on ordinary wages, saying, "In what country does the Supreme Court have an en banc session on every wage item in a company?" "If about five years pass after any new wage item, people ask, 'Doesn't it become an ordinary wage?'" Cho said in an exclusive interview with The Dong-A Ilbo. "It is urgent to take legislative measures to clarify the scope of ordinary wages, such as 'all wages received by workers are ordinary wages."

The ordinary wage is the basis for calculating various statutory allowances such as holiday and overtime pay, and it can also affect retirement allowances. It is a sensitive issue between labor and management, as the amount of wages exchanged between companies and workers varies depending on its calculation method. However, the Enforcement Decree of the Labor Standards Act only states that the ordinary wage means “the amount to be paid to an employee for specifically agreed work or entire work on a regular and flat basis" without further details. This lack of clarity has led to many disputes over whether bonuses and support funds are ordinary wages.

In 2013, the Supreme Court's en banc set the standard for ordinary wages as 'wages paid on a regular, flat, and fixed basis,' but labor and management have been embroiled in a battle over the interpretation, which varies from company to company. The issue of whether newly created items such as welfare points qualify as ordinary wages is also a subject of litigation. The interests are sharply divided, and the legal issues are complex, often leading to cases being referred to the en banc session of the Supreme Court without being concluded by a smaller division. This complexity underscores the urgent need for legislative measures to clarify the relevant laws.

The disagreement between labor and management over the legality of temporary placement of workers is also a source of conflict. The Act on the Protection of Temporary Agency Workers limits the temporary placement of workers to 32 types of work, such as security, cleaning, and parking lot management, and is criticized for not keeping up with changes in the industrial field. The boundary between placing and contracting workers is also unclear. As a result, there are many cases where labor and management are stuck in court, such as the case of Hyundai Steel's in-house subcontractors, which took 13 years to confirm‎ their regular worker status. The courts are also burdened. There are nearly 1,000 long-term pending cases related to ordinary wages and temporary agency workers, causing delays in trials.

The fundamental solution to the problem is to clarify the relevant laws to minimize the room for disputes. This is probably why Chief Justice Cho said he would discuss the government's proposal to set up labor courts. However, he also mentioned, "If legislative measures are taken on ordinary wages and temporary placement of workers, court decisions will be much faster." These are livelihood issues that are directly related to the treatment of workers. This is why political parties should take the chief justice's appeal seriously and speed up the revision of the relevant laws.