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영어

The concept of subordinate labor relationship has played a role of distinguishing one guoup of employees who are protected by the labor laws with the others who are not. Only the employees under subordinate labor relationship are covered by the labor laws. Because, in Korea, there is no statute defining the concept and standard of subordinate labor relationship, the cases rended by the Supreme Court of Koreait has relied on interpreting it. The Court, however, is divided as to the concept and standard of subordinate labor relationship. Previously, the Court had adopted the rule applicable to the employees covered by the Labor Standard Act and applied this rule to the employees under other laws on the position that one same rule appies to all the laws. Consequently, many employees covered by labor laws other than the Labor Standard Act were excluded from the coverage by the labor laws. Currently, the Court has begun to change its position and adopted new concept and standard of subordinate labor relationship. The Court criticized the traditional subordinate labor relationship because it cannot protect the employees who are not covered by the Labor Stansdard Act. The court suggested the new rule applicable to the employees under the Labor Union Act, which covers the broader scope of workers and of which the purpose is different from the Labor Standard Act, Under the new rule, many employees, who are excluded from the coverage of the Labor Standard Act because they are lack of subordinate labor relationship, have begun to be recognized as employees under the Labor Union Act. The new rule plays a great role for including the formerly unprotected emplyees into pretected ones by the labor laws. But, the Court adopted the different rules on subordinate labor relationship between the Labor Standard Act an the Labor Union Act. In this paper, I suggested that there is only one standard on the subordinate labor relationship, which is applicable to all the labor laws.