[1] Requirements for recognizing that certain practices in the company are constituted the content of a labor contract

[2] Where the collective agreement concluded between the Korea Railroad Corporation and the Korea Railroad Workers' Union provides that "the Corporation shall provide an office for partnership activities," and a trade union requested the Corporation to pay the electrical charges of partnership offices, the case holding that the court below erred in the misapprehension of legal principles on the ground that the "provision of office" under the collective agreement includes the payment of the electrical charges

[1] In order to establish that a specific practice existing within an enterprise forms the content of an employment contract, such a practice must be approved as a normative fact that regulates the employment relationship in the enterprise society as a matter of course, or accepted as a matter of course without any objection by the members of the enterprise and supported by the normative formula to the extent that it can be established as a de facto system in the enterprise.

[2] Where the collective agreement concluded between the Korea Railroad Corporation and the Korea Railroad Workers' Union provide that "the Corporation shall provide an office for partnership activities," and the trade union requested the Corporation to pay the electricity fees of the partnership office, the case holding that the court below erred in the misapprehension of legal principles on the ground that "the provision of office rooms" under the collective agreement includes the payment of the electricity fees, which is the nature of operating expenses, beyond the provision of office facilities, such as books, chairs, and electrical facilities, generally kept within the scope of social norms, and that the payment of the electricity fees, which is the nature of operating expenses, can not be interpreted as included in the provision of office rooms, and that the provision of the electricity fees is not clearly approved as a normative fact that regulates labor relations within the Corporation, or is supported by the normative formula to the extent that it can be established as a de facto system.

[1] Article 106 of the Civil Act, Article 17 of the Labor Standards Act / [2] Article 105 of the Civil Act, Article 106 of the Civil Act, Article 17 of the Labor Standards Act, Article 81 subparag. 4, and Article 90 of the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act

[1] Supreme Court Decision 2000Da50701 decided Apr. 23, 2002 (Gong2002Sang, 1209)

National Railroad Workers' Union (Attorney Lee Du-pon et al., Counsel for the plaintiff-appellant)

Korea Railroad Corporation (Law Firm Barun, Attorneys Seo Ho-chul et al., Counsel for the defendant-appellant)

Seoul Western District Court Decision 2011Na5695 decided November 18, 2011

The judgment of the court below is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Seoul Western District Court Panel Division.

The grounds of appeal are examined.

1. A disposal document should be reasonably interpreted in accordance with logical and empirical rules by comprehensively taking into account the contents of the language and text, the motive and background leading up to the agreement, the purpose to be achieved by the agreement, the party’s genuine intent, etc. in cases where the interpretation of the parties’ intent expressed in the document is at issue due to the different opinions on the interpretation of the language and text, barring any special circumstances where the authenticity is acknowledged. In addition, in order to ensure that a specific practice in the inside of a company forms the content of a labor contract, such practice is clearly approved as a normative fact that regulates labor relations in the company society, or is accepted as a matter of course by a member of the company without raising any objection, and is supported by a norm that can be said to have been established as a de facto system in the company (see, e.g., Supreme Court Decision 2005Da72249, May 10, 207).

2. Review of the reasoning of the lower judgment and the record reveals the following facts and circumstances.

A. Article 13(1) of the former collective agreement concluded between the Plaintiff and the Defendant on April 1, 2006 and Article 11(1) of the new collective agreement concluded on May 14, 2010 stipulate that “the Corporation shall provide offices for union activities,” respectively. There is no provision on operating expenses, such as electricity charges, etc. Meanwhile, Article 81 subparag. 4 of the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act provides that “the provision of an office for union activities shall be excluded from the provision of an office for trade unions of a minimum size, but the employer’s act of assisting the operating expenses of the trade union is prohibited as unfair labor practices, and Article 90 provides that criminal punishment shall be imposed

B. Since around 1945, when the Plaintiff, whose members are employees, provided a trade union office to the Plaintiff after the establishment of the Plaintiff, the Korea Railroad, which is a telegraph of the Defendant, with the charge of electricity charges for the use of electric facilities ancillary thereto. However, the burden of electricity charges is not explicitly agreed between the Plaintiff and the Korea Railroad, and the Plaintiff’s net local headquarters office with a separate electric measuring instrument, without any objection, has paid electricity charges to the Plaintiff’s net local headquarters office with a separate electric measuring instrument from the beginning of the beginning. In light of the above, it is difficult for the Plaintiff to separately pay electricity charges to the association office due to the failure to install a separate electric measuring instrument at the association office, or it seems that the Korea Railroad Agency, which

C. However, on January 1, 2005, the Korean Railroad was converted to the defendant, and therefore, the defendant paid the electricity fee from the defendant's own budget, not from the government budget, and the defendant paid the electricity fee to the labor union office as a result of the comprehensive audit conducted around April 2009, it was pointed out that the burden of the electricity fee may constitute an unfair labor act that assists the labor union's operating expenses under Article 81 subparagraph 4 of the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act, and the Ministry of Labor asked questions to the Ministry of Labor. On July 7, 2009, the Ministry of Labor responded to the purport that the act that the employer subsidized the electricity fee required for the operation of the labor union office in accordance with the collective agreement constitutes an unfair labor act

D. On July 31, 2009, the Defendant notified the Plaintiff that he would not bear electricity charges in the future since the burden of electricity charges at the labor union office constitutes unfair labor practices. Since around that time, the Defendant installed a separate electrical measuring instrument at the Plaintiff’s respective labor union offices. On the other hand, the Korea Electric Power Corporation intended to apply for the change of the electricity usage contract for the change of the name of the payer, but did not cooperate with the Plaintiff, but suspended the Plaintiff’s payment of electricity charges at the Plaintiff’s association offices from December 2009, without the Plaintiff’s consent to the change procedure.

3. Examining the literal meaning of the provision of each of the above collective agreements, the contents of the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act, the circumstances where the Korea Railroad has been supported by the electricity fee, and the defendant's position and actions after the conversion into a public corporation from a government agency, in light of the legal principles as seen earlier, it cannot be interpreted that the payment of the electricity fee, which has the nature of operating expenses, is included in excess of the provision of office facilities and the provision of incidental facilities such as books, chairs, electric facilities, which are generally kept within the scope of social norms, as well as the payment of the electricity fee, which has the nature of operating expenses, in addition, it is difficult to view that the practice of subsidization of the electricity fee has been clearly approved as a normative fact that regulates the labor relations of the defendant within the extent that it can be established as a de facto system.

Nevertheless, the lower court, based on its stated reasoning, concluded that the provision of offices under each of the above collective agreements was included in the payment of electricity charges. In so doing, the lower court erred by misapprehending the legal doctrine on the interpretation of collective agreements in relation to each of the above provisions of the collective agreements, thereby adversely affecting the conclusion of the judgment. The Defendant’s ground of appeal assigning this error has merit.

4. Therefore, without examining the Defendant’s remaining grounds of appeal, the lower judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded to the lower court for further proceedings consistent with this Opinion. It is so decided as per Disposition by the assent of all participating Justices on the bench

Justices Kim Shin (Presiding Justice)