’31 years of torsion ‘from KTU’s inauguration in 1989 to the Supreme Court ruling

Recognized as a legal union after 10 years of inauguration … Park Geun-hye Administration ‘Notification of union outside the law’The ‘test transaction’ was revealed in the resolution process, but the current government also insisted on ‘legal’

The National Union of Teacher Workers was officially launched in 1989, shouting “realization of true education.” However, the Roh Tae-woo administration did not recognize the formation of a teachers union, so it could not function as a legal union for 10 years. It was not until the Kim Dae-jung administration in 1999 that the Teachers Union Law was passed by the National Assembly, and the entire KTU became a legal union with 60,000 members by submitting a notice of establishment to the Ministry of Labor.

It was during the time of the Lee Myung-bak administration that the conflict between the foreign unions began. In September 2010, the Ministry of Labor issued the first corrective order. The reason was that the KTU regulation, which recognizes dismissed teachers as members, violated Article 2 of the Teachers’ Union Act, which restricts membership qualifications to tenured teachers. At this time, in a lawsuit filed by the KTU for the injustice of the corrective order, the court judged the victory of the Ministry of Labor. In September 2013, during the Park Geun-hye administration, the Ministry of Employment and Labor again issued a corrective order to the same effect. The KTU did not comply with the corrective order and the Ministry of Labor imposed a notification provision on the KTU in October of that year. If you become a non-legal union, you lose the right to enter into collective agreements and cannot use the name of the union. The International Labor Organization (ILO) has recommended that the government repeal laws that prohibit the displaced and the unemployed from joining the union. Even after joining the ILO in 1991, Korea did not ratify the core conventions governing it.

The KTU filed a lawsuit requesting the court to cancel the provision for service and suspend the provision for service. The judicial decisions on this case diverged between the courts. The 13th Division of the Seoul Administrative Court (the presiding judge Ban Jung-woo), the first court of first instance, ruled in the defeat of the entire KTU in June 2014. The notification of the foreign union by the Ministry of Employment and Labor. However, three months later, in September 2014, the Seventh Administrative Division of the Seoul High Court (Judge Min Joong-ki), the appeals court, requested that Article 2 of the Teachers’ Union Law, which is the basis for the disposition of the Ministry of Labor, was unconstitutional and suspended the effect of the notification. For the time being, the entire KTU will maintain its legal union status. The Ministry of Labor requested a new appeal to the Supreme Court to try again.

A constitutional decision was made that article 2 of the Teachers Union Law was constitutional, and five days later, in June 2015, the Supreme Court repealed and returned the case of suspension of the appeal. However, this time in November of the same year, the 10th Administrative Division of the Seoul High Court (Presiding Judge Kim Myung-soo) suspended the effect again in a remand hearing. In January 2016, the Seventh Administrative Division of the Seoul High Court (President Hwang Byung-ha) ruled against the defeat of the entire KTU.

In the course of the Supreme Court’s processing of this case, the circumstances in which the judicial administration tried to influence the judgment based on the position of the Blue House were revealed through the prosecution’s investigation into the case. Judicial Nongdan. A document produced by the Court Administration Office in 2014 states that following the decision to suspend the effect of the administration of the 7th Seoul High Court, the Blue House “expressed great dissatisfaction”, saying that an “abnormal normalization” was necessary. . There is a phrase that says: “The decision to cite a new appeal (applied by the Ministry of Labor) → It will be a beneficial result for both parties (Blue House and Supreme Court). Former Chief Justice Yang Seung-tae, etc., is on trial on charges (abuse of office) for instructing the deliberations officer of the court’s administration department to review content that undermines the independence of judges. , such as court proceedings in accordance with the principle of the state administration of the president for the introduction of the court of appeals.

President Moon Jae-in was expected to revoke the KTU’s extra-legal unions notification provision as promised during the presidential election process. However, even after the Moon Jae-in administration entered the Labor Ministry, the Labor Ministry did not decide to cancel it, and in the Supreme Court appeals hearing process, it insisted that it is legal to have the notification of external unions. On the other hand, the National Assembly proposed an amendment to the Teachers Union Law, which expands the scope of membership in the Teachers Union in June not only to teachers, but also to those who have been appointed and worked as teachers. and that are determined by the rules of the union. Spent in Finally, the integral organ of the Supreme Court ruled on the 3rd that it was illegal to notify the foreign union, and the court ruling on the conflict between the government and the entire KTU was resolved.