Kim Rahn is the managing editor of The Korea Times. Since joining the company in 2003, she has covered various beats including the presidential office, Seoul city government, the Bank of Korea and the tourism industry. In 2014, she won the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) award for her coverage of the ordeals of migrant women in Korea.
Court to put 1,000 Hyundai Motor workers on regular payroll
Contract workers with Hyundai Motor celebrate a court ruling that paved the way for them to become regular workers, in front of the Seoul Central District Court on Thursday. / Yonhap
By Kim Rahn
Court decision gives 1,000 non-regular workers regular status
By Kim Rahn
Nearly 1,000 non-regular workers at Hyundai Motor may get regular worker status following a court ruling, Thursday.
The Seoul Central District Court ruled in favor of 994 contract workers, confirming that they should be regarded as employees hired directly by Hyundai Motor.
The verdict came four years after they filed the suit against Hyundai Motor and the firm’s subcontractor demanding regular employee status.
“The workers belonged to the subcontractor, but they had work orders and supervision by Hyundai Motor at the motor company’s factory in reality,” the court said in the ruling.
“We see all the workers hired directly by Hyundai Motor, and recognize they have worked for more than two years for the company,” it said.
A related law says non-regular workers should be recognized as regular employees if they are hired for more than two years continuously.
The workers, belonging to the subcontractor, had the same production work as regular employees working for Hyundai Motor. But they could not get the same level of salaries and perks as regular workers.
Their legal battle started in November 2010 after the Supreme Court ruled that such discrimination was wrong in a suit filed by one such non-regular worker, Choi Byeong-seung, who worked at Hyundai Motor’s plant in Ulsan.
The top court said at that time that Choi was virtually a full-time worker for Hyundai Motor, not the subcontractor.
Following the ruling, 1,175 other contract workers filed this suit to confirm they also belonged to Hyundai Motor and to demand higher wages as Hyundai’s regular employees. It was the largest number of non-regular workers for a single suit.
During the four years of court battles, some dropped the suit, so the local court passed a ruling for the remaining 994 people.
Those workers also demanded that Hyundai Motor pay them 58 billion won which they might have received if they had worked directly for Hyundai Motor. But the court acknowledged only part of it, ordering Hyundai to pay 23.1 billion won.
This ruling is expected to have an influence on similar cases filed by contract workers of other motor or electronics companies. A separate ruling for another 285 contract employees for Hyundai Motor is due today.
Separately from the ruling, Hyundai Motor said last month that it will hire 4,000 contract workers at its Jeonju and Asan plants as regular employees by the end of 2015.
“We’ve hired 2,438 contract workers so far. We’ll keep changing non-regular workers’ job status to hire all the 4,000 people directly and fundamentally solve the contract worker problem,” the company said.