[영문뉴스] 법원, 기아자동차 정기상여금을 통상임금으로 판결하다
2017-09-03 위키리크스한국
The Seoul Central District Court ordered Kia, a unit of Hyundai Motor Group, to pay 422.3 billion won ($370 million) in “unpaid wages.” This is 39 percent of the 1.09 trillion won 27,424 the union asked for in the suit filed in 2011.
Whether fixed bonuses should be counted as part of the base wage has been a key issue for all companies in recent years as the latter is used as a basis for calculating compensation, severance pay and retirement benefits.
The ruling is expected to deal a substantial blow to the automotive group which has already been suffering a steep fall in sales in China.
Right after the ruling, Kia said it will appeal the decision, claiming the additional wage costs will top 1 trillion won given it will have to pay retroactively.
“The 422.3 billion won only covers the period between August 2008 and October 2011. With the ruling, we have to take into account wage costs between November 2011 and the current date,” a company official said.
The union claimed the company underpaid them as it failed to include regular bonuses and other allowances such as lunch pay in its base pay.
The court recognized regular bonuses and some allowances as part of the base wage because they were paid on a regular basis, upholding a Supreme Court decision made in a similar case in December 2013.
At that time, the top court said companies would be able to avoid such recognition if workers pursued too excessive wages to the point where the former were threatened with bankruptcy.
The bedrock principle is based on the presumption parties to a contract will deal with each other honestly, fairly and in good faith. This is widely used as the basis for settling wage disputes between labor and management.
Kia Motors has claimed that the union’s call for regular bonuses to be included in the base wage was a breach of the “principle of good faith” agreed between the two sides. “We cannot accept the court’s ruling. We are going to appeal,” a company official said.
However, the court rejected the company’s claim that workers belatedly claiming unpaid wages was a breach of the principle.
“The workers did not seek too excessive wages to the extent of throwing management into crisis. The company is enjoying sales and profits made from what should have been the workers’ legally recognized wages,” the court said.
It said the company is financially capable of bearing the costs, rejecting management’s claim that it would face a crisis.
It said the company failed to submit corroborating evidence for its claimed operating losses stemming from China’s economic retaliation against Korean companies operating there due to an ongoing row over the deployment of a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system here.
Currently, 115 similar cases are under review at district courts nationwide. They are among 192 companies that began legal battles over the wage dispute between January 2013 and June this year.
The Korea Employers Federation said companies may have to pay between 20 trillion and 38 trillion won in unpaid wages.
Kia Motors posted an operating profit of 787 billion won in the first half of the year, down 44 percent from the same period last year, its poorest performance since 2010.
On the stock market, Kia Motors shares closed down 3.54 percent at 35,450 won, while Hyundai Motor also closed down 1.75 percent at 140,500 won. The benchmark KOSPI ended down 0.38 percent at 2,363.19.
/Rep. Kang Ji Hyun