ENGLISH

Judicial Precedent 1 – Criteria for determining worker status pursuant to the Labor Standards Act

Judicial Precedent 2 – The case of instructors at a beauty academy, whohave received no specific or individual guidance and supervision from theemployer; have paid the business tax, rather than the income tax; and have beenuninsured with respect to the four basic national insurances, i.e., health insurance, national pensioninsurance, employment insurance and industrial accident compensation insurances.

The following circumstanceswhere instructors’ base pay, being proportional tothe lecture duration, varied depending on the hours as well as the subjecttaught; where with no students, the class was cancelled without payments; wherethe instructors paid the business tax, rather than the income tax for theirteaching salaries and no income tax was withheldfrom their teaching salaries, with only business tax and resident tax withheld; where they were not insured in the four basic national insurances– namely, Health Insurance, National Pension Insurance, Employment Insurance,Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance as employees of the aforementionedacademy; and where the defendant set no rules whatsoever with regard to theduty and the discipline for instructors, including employment regulations, serviceprovisions, personnel regulations, etc., arerecognized as being common for the temporary workers on the rise in recentyears or as simply arbitrary conditions imposed by theemployer using his/her economic superiority. Moreover, the fact that the instructors have not been individually supervisedby the employer concerning the details of subjects taught or teaching methods isdeemed resultant from the nature of teaching work and is not deemed as evidenceproving that they were not workers. Accordingly, onecannot deny the worker status of the aforementioned beauty academy instructorbased on the above circumstances alone (Supreme Court Decision 2006Do777Decided September 7, 2077).

Judicial Precedent 1 – Denial of worker status to an insurance coordinator at a post office

Judicial Precedent 2 – Denial of worker status to a golf course caddie

A caddie working at a golf course cannot beperceived as a worker prescribed under Article 14 of the Labor Standards Act(i.e., as a person who receives wage under a subordinate relationship) uponconsidering the following: (i) The caddie did not sign a labor supply contractsuch as an employment agreement with the golf course owner. (ii) Caddying isnot a mandatory service provided to golf course visitors so it is not anindispensable element in operating a golf course. (iii) As remuneration fortheir services, caddies receive service charges called caddie fees directlyfrom visitors, and do not receive any form of payment from the golf course owner. (iv) While theirorder of shifts is determined, the service worker’s working hours are not, so caddiesmay leave a golf facility after providing their services. (v) Even in a casewhere a caddie is unable to provide service due to decreased numberof visitors, etc., and not due to reasons attributable to thecaddie, the golf course owner does not provide any payment which corresponds tocaddie fee, nor does it pay any non-duty allowance as prescribed by the LaborStandards Act. (vi) When caddies provideservices for visitors, they do not receive specific and direct commands orsupervision from the golf course owner. (vii) Caddies do not pay earned incometaxes. (viii) Even if a caddie neglects his/her duty,the only actual disadvantage he/she suffers is that his/her shift will bere-arranged to the very last, and the golf course owner does not subject thecaddie to any disciplinary measures for disobeying company rules, etc. (SupremeCourt Decision 2011Da44267 Decided June 27, 2013 and Supreme Court Decision95Nu13432, July. 30, 1996).