Open Decision Ledger · Labour & industrial accidents
Welfare points under a flexible benefit scheme are not wages or ordinary wages
Supreme Court, Sept. 9, 2019, 2017Da230079 (judgment)
No holding summary · checked against points at issue. The official text publishes no summary of the holding for this decision. The quotation and factors in this record are copied verbatim from the points at issue; the evidence for each axis is taken from the points at issue, the order and the reasons.
Case name: 임금
Official text on the National Law Information Center
Question
How is ordinary wages defined under the Labour Standards Act, and are welfare points that an employer operating a flexible benefit scheme allocates continuously and regularly under a collective agreement or employment rules wages and therefore ordinary wages?
Holding
Ordinary wages are the money agreed as the consideration for the scheduled work an employee regularly performs during scheduled hours, paid regularly, uniformly and on a fixed basis. A payment is consideration for labour only where the duty to pay arises directly from, or closely relates to, the provision of labour. Welfare points that an employer operating a flexible benefit scheme allocates continuously and regularly to employees under a collective agreement or employment rules are not wages under the Labour Standards Act and so are not ordinary wages.
Points at issue, verbatim
사용자가 선택적 복지제도를 시행하면서 단체협약, 취업규칙 등에 근거하여 근로자들에게 계속적·정기적으로 배정한 복지포인트가 근로기준법에서 정한 임금 및 통상임금에 해당하는지 여부(소극)
Unofficial English translation
Whether welfare points continuously and regularly allocated to employees by an employer implementing an optional welfare system on the basis of a collective agreement, rules of employment, etc. correspond to wages and ordinary wages as prescribed in the Labor Standards Act (negative)
Disposition
Partly reversed and remanded Stated in the decision
원심판결 중 피고 패소 부분을 파기하고, 이 부분 사건을 서울고등법원에 환송한다.
Unofficial English translation
The part of the judgment of the court below that was against the defendant is reversed, and this part of the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court.
Form of the test
Elements stated Stated in the decision
근로기준법이 연장·야간·휴일 근로에 대한 가산임금, 해고예고수당, 연차휴가수당 등의 산정기준과 평균임금의 최저한으로 규정하고 있는 통상임금은 근로자가 소정근로시간에 통상적으로 제공하는 근로인 소정근로의 대가로 지급하기로 약정한 금품으로서 정기적·일률적·고정적으로 지급되는 임금을 말한다.
Unofficial English translation
Ordinary wages, which the Labor Standards Act prescribes as the basis for calculating the additional wages for extended, night, and holiday work, the advance notice allowance, the annual paid leave allowance, etc., and as the minimum for average wages, means the money and goods agreed to be paid as the consideration for the work that the employee ordinarily provides during prescribed working hours, that is, prescribed work, which is paid on a regular, uniform, and fixed basis.
Factors
- 통상임금의 의의 및 어떤 임금이 통상임금에 속하는지 판단하는 기준
- 사용자가 선택적 복지제도를 시행하면서 단체협약, 취업규칙 등에 근거하여 근로자들에게 계속적·정기적으로 배정한 복지포인트가 근로기준법에서 정한 임금 및 통상임금에 해당하는지 여부(소극)
Unofficial English translation
• The meaning of ordinary wages and the criteria for determining which wages fall within ordinary wages
• Whether welfare points continuously and regularly allocated to employees by an employer implementing an optional welfare system on the basis of a collective agreement, rules of employment, etc. correspond to wages and ordinary wages as prescribed in the Labor Standards Act (negative)
Relation to precedent
Follows earlier decisions Stated in the decision
대법원 2019. 8. 22. 선고 2016다48785 전원합의체 판결(공2019하, 1740)
Unofficial English translation
Supreme Court en banc judgment 2016Da48785 decided August 22, 2019 (Gong 2019 Ha, 1740)
Decisions referred to
[1] 대법원 2013. 12. 18. 선고 2012다89399 전원합의체 판결(공2014상, 236) / [2] 대법원 1995. 5. 12. 선고 94다55934 판결(공1995상, 2111), 대법원 2011. 7. 14. 선고 2011다23149 판결(공2011하, 1621), 대법원 2019. 8. 22. 선고 2016다48785 전원합의체 판결(공2019하, 1740)
Burden of proof
Not addressed Not in the decision
Open question and revisit condition
If an employer must convert unused welfare points into cash at the employee's request, do those points remain outside wages and ordinary wages?
A later decision on converting, carrying over or cashing out flexible benefit points would call for a fresh reading of this entry, as would an amendment to Article 2(1)(v) of the Labour Standards Act, Article 6 of its Enforcement Decree or Articles 81 and 82 of the Framework Act on Employee Welfare.
Cross-family AI independent reading & axis check
6 of 8 axes matched GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI, codex CLI) · 2026-10-25
A reader from another model family (GPT-6 Astra), given the official text but not the primary reading, agreed on 6 of the 8 axes; the readings differed on axis 4 (form of the test), axis 8 (open question and revisit condition).
Axis 4 (Form of the test): Primary “Elements stated” vs Independent “Existing test applied”
The primary treats the standard as a requirement-setting rule (요건 제시), while the independent frames it as application to the facts (사안 적용); the same passage can be read as stating a rule or as applying it.
사용자가 선택적 복지제도를 시행하면서 단체협약, 취업규칙 등에 근거하여 근로자들에게 계속적·정기적으로 배정한 복지포인트가 근로기준법에서 정한 임금 및 통상임금에 해당하는지 여부(소극)Axis 8 (Open question and revisit condition): Primary “If an employer must convert unused welfare points into cash at the employee's request, do those points remain outside wages and ordinary wages?” vs Independent “Would points paid directly in exchange for work and freely convertible into cash qualify as wages?”
The primary asks whether an obligation to convert unused points into cash at the employee's request changes the result, while the independent asks whether points paid directly for work and freely convertible into cash would be wages.
사용자가 선택적 복지제도를 시행하면서 단체협약, 취업규칙 등에 근거하여 근로자들에게 계속적·정기적으로 배정한 복지포인트가 근로기준법에서 정한 임금 및 통상임금에 해당하는지 여부(소극)Raw responses and comparison record: Protocol · Blind readings (JSONL) · Axis comparison (JSONL) · SHA-256 (JSON)
Lower-court contrast & scope of application
Lower-court reading vs. Supreme Court holding
Lower-court context: The Seoul High Court, in its judgment of 19 April 2017 (2016Na2083847), held that the bonus fixed by Article 23 of the defendant's pay regulations was paid regularly, uniformly and on a fixed basis, and so was ordinary wages under the Labour Standards Act. It also held that the basic welfare points which the defendant allocated every year on a uniform basis to employees of grade 3 and lower under its customised welfare operation guidelines were ordinary wages.
Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court found no error in the first holding, since the statement of the ordinary wage test had not been misapplied to the bonus. It held the second wrong: welfare points allocated continuously and regularly under a collective agreement or employment rules in a flexible benefit scheme are not wages under the Labour Standards Act and therefore not ordinary wages. It reversed the part of the judgment in which the defendant lost and remanded the case to the Seoul High Court, the Justices being unanimous.
Distinguishing conditions
- A payment whose duty to pay arises directly from, or closely relates to, the provision of labour, since the Court held that such a payment can be wages even though it is paid continuously and regularly.
- A bonus of the kind fixed by Article 23 of the defendant's pay regulations, which the Court held to be regular, uniform and fixed and therefore ordinary wages.
- A welfare benefit that an employer does not allocate continuously and regularly to employees under a collective agreement or employment rules while operating a flexible benefit scheme.
Record verification notes
Set the disputed payment against the two tests the Court gave: whether the duty to pay arises directly from or closely relates to the provision of labour, and whether the payment is fixed and unconditional once scheduled work is done. Then confirm that the scheme is a flexible benefit scheme in which the employee chooses among welfare items, since that was the basis of the negative holding. Finally identify which versions of Article 2(1)(v) of the Labour Standards Act, Article 6 of its Enforcement Decree and Articles 1, 3(1), 81 and 82 of the Framework Act on Employee Welfare applied at the relevant time.
From the official text
Points at issue
[1] 통상임금의 의의 및 어떤 임금이 통상임금에 속하는지 판단하는 기준 [2] 사용자가 선택적 복지제도를 시행하면서 단체협약, 취업규칙 등에 근거하여 근로자들에게 계속적·정기적으로 배정한 복지포인트가 근로기준법에서 정한 임금 및 통상임금에 해당하는지 여부(소극)
Unofficial English translation
[1] The meaning of ordinary wages and the criteria for determining which wages fall within ordinary wages [2] Whether welfare points continuously and regularly allocated to employees by an employer implementing an optional welfare system on the basis of a collective agreement, rules of employment, etc. correspond to wages and ordinary wages as prescribed in the Labor Standards Act (negative)
Summary of the holding
The official text publishes no summary of the holding for this decision. The quotation and factors in this record are copied verbatim from the points at issue; the evidence for each axis is taken from the points at issue, the order and the reasons.
Order
원심판결 중 피고 패소 부분을 파기하고, 이 부분 사건을 서울고등법원에 환송한다.
Unofficial English translation
The part of the judgment of the court below that was against the defendant is reversed, and this part of the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court.
Provisions referred to
[1] 근로기준법 제2조 제1항 제5호, 제2항, 제26조, 제56조, 제60조, 근로기준법 시행령 제6조 제1항 [2] 근로기준법 제2조 제1항 제5호, 제43조 제1항, 근로기준법 시행령 제6조, 근로복지기본법 제1조, 제3조 제1항, 제81조, 제82조
Read 2026-10-25 · Cross-read 2026-10-25. All quotes matched against the official text. The Chinese-character placeholders the court used for anonymised parties are given in their Korean readings, and parenthetical Chinese-character glosses are omitted.
Every entry is published only after all quotes have been matched character by character against the official text, and audited by an independent second reading from a different model family across all eight axes. Both agreed axes and text-grounded interpretive divergences are recorded openly. The ledger is a research record, not an assessment of the court or advice on any matter.
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