Open Decision Ledger · Labour & industrial accidents
Wages already due and a union's disposal without consent
Supreme Court, Mar. 31, 2022, 2021Da229861 (judgment)
Case name: 임금
Official text on the National Law Information Center
Question
Where a concrete right to payment of wages has already arisen, may a union, without the individual consent or authorisation of the workers, dispose of those wages by a collective agreement with the employer alone, by return, waiver or deferral, and when is such a right to payment deemed to have arisen?
Holding
No. Wages whose concrete right to payment has arisen have passed into the worker's private property domain and are left to the worker's own disposal, so a union cannot dispose of them by a collective agreement with the employer alone unless it has the individual consent or authorisation of the workers. Whether the right to payment has arisen is judged by whether the payment date fixed in the employment contract or the rules of employment has arrived. For money paid as an allowance calculated over a period exceeding one month, once the date set for payment has arrived, the same rule applies.
Summary of the holding, verbatim
이미 구체적으로 지급청구권이 발생한 임금은 근로자의 사적 재산영역으로 옮겨져 근로자의 처분에 맡겨진 것이기 때문에 노동조합이 근로자들로부터 개별적인 동의나 수권을 받지 않는 이상, 사용자와 사이의 단체협약만으로 이에 대한 반환이나 포기 및 지급유예와 같은 처분행위를 할 수는 없다.
Unofficial English translation
Wages for which a concrete claim to payment has already arisen are transferred into the employee's sphere of private property and left to the employee's disposition; therefore, unless a labor union has obtained individual consent or authorization from the employees, it cannot, solely on the basis of a collective bargaining agreement with the employer, engage in acts of disposition such as return, waiver, or deferral of payment thereof.
Disposition
Partly reversed and remanded Stated in the decision
원심판결의 피고 패소 부분 중 원고 1, 원고 7의 2018년 3월 급여, 원고 1의 근속포상금에 대한 부분을 파기하고, 이 부분 사건을 수원고등법원에 환송한다. 나머지 상고를 기각한다.
Unofficial English translation
The portion of the judgment of the court below in which the defendant lost, as to the March 2018 salaries of Plaintiff 1 and Plaintiff 7 and the long-service award of Plaintiff 1, is reversed, and the case as to this portion is remanded to the Suwon High Court. The remainder of the final appeal is dismissed.
Form of the test
Elements stated Stated in the decision
이때 구체적으로 지급청구권이 발생하여 단체협약만으로 포기 등을 할 수 없게 되는 임금인지는 근로계약, 취업규칙 등에서 정한 지급기일이 도래하였는지를 기준으로 판단하여야 한다.
Unofficial English translation
At this time, whether wages are those for which a concrete claim to payment has arisen such that waiver or the like cannot be effected solely by a collective bargaining agreement must be determined on the basis of whether the payment date set forth in the employment contract, rules of employment, etc. has arrived.
Factors
- 노동조합이 근로자들로부터 개별적인 동의나 수권을 받지 않는 이상
- 근로자의 사적 재산영역으로 옮겨져 근로자의 처분에 맡겨진 것이기 때문에
- 근로계약, 취업규칙 등에서 정한 지급기일이 도래하였는지를 기준으로 판단하여야 한다
- 1월을 초과하는 기간에 의하여 산정되는 수당 등
- 반환이나 포기 및 지급유예와 같은 처분행위를 할 수는 없다
Unofficial English translation
• unless a labor union has obtained individual consent or authorization from the employees
• are transferred into the employee's sphere of private property and left to the employee's disposition; therefore
• must be determined on the basis of whether the payment date set forth in the employment contract, rules of employment, etc. has arrived
• allowances etc. calculated by a period exceeding one month
• cannot engage in acts of disposition such as return, waiver, or deferral of payment
Relation to precedent
Follows earlier decisions Stated in the decision
대법원 2019. 10. 18. 선고 2015다60207 판결(공2019하, 2100)
Unofficial English translation
Supreme Court Decision 2015Da60207 decided October 18, 2019 (Gong 2019 Ha, 2100)
Decisions referred to
[1] 대법원 2019. 10. 18. 선고 2015다60207 판결(공2019하, 2100) / [2] 대법원 2002. 4. 12. 선고 2001다41384 판결(공2002상, 1104)
Burden of proof
Not addressed Not in the decision
Open question and revisit condition
What conduct short of a written consent form may amount to the worker's individual authorisation for a union to waive wages already due?
The remand judgment of the Suwon High Court on Plaintiffs 1 and 7's March 2018 salary and Plaintiff 1's length-of-service award will show how the payment-date criterion is applied to these pay items. A change to Article 43(2) of the Labour Standards Act or Article 23 of its Enforcement Decree, or a later decision on good faith and later labour-management agreements, would require this entry to be read again.
Cross-family AI independent reading & axis check
8 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 all 8 axes.
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 Suwon High Court, in its judgment of 8 April 2021 (2019Na19708), held that the wages of Plaintiffs 1 and 7 accrued between 21 February and 8 March 2018 had already given rise to a concrete right to payment, so the labour-management agreement of 8 March 2018 could not operate as a return of them. On the length-of-service awards it held that the required service years of 35 for Plaintiffs 1 and 2 and of 30 for Plaintiff 4 had been completed, so a concrete right to payment had arisen; it granted Plaintiff 1's claim because Plaintiff 1 had not submitted a consent form, and dismissed the claims of Plaintiffs 2 and 4 because they had submitted consent forms.
Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court held that the court below had misread the law on the scope of wages returnable by a labour-management agreement. Under Defendant's pay rules the pay period for staff ran from the 21st of the previous month to the 20th of the month with payment on the 25th, so the agreement of 8 March 2018 preceded the payment date of 25 March 2018 and the whole of the March 2018 salary was returnable; and the collective agreement fixed the length-of-service award for payment on 22 May each year, so awards whose service years had passed were likewise returnable. It reversed and remanded that part as to Plaintiffs 1 and 7's March 2018 salary and Plaintiff 1's length-of-service award; as to Plaintiffs 2 and 4 it held the reasoning on the consent forms insufficient but the dismissal correct, and on the remaining grounds, covering the December 2017 bonus, the 2017 annual leave allowance and Plaintiff 1's February 2018 fuel cost, it found no misreading of the law on annual leave, the timing of wages or good faith and no failure to examine what was needed.
Distinguishing conditions
- A wage whose payment date fixed in the employment contract or the rules of employment had not yet arrived when the collective agreement was concluded, so that no concrete right to payment has arisen yet.
- A case in which the union obtained the individual consent or authorisation of the workers, so that the collective agreement alone is not doing the disposing.
- Money paid by the employer to the worker as part of the work for which no payment date has been set, so that no concrete right to payment has arisen yet.
Record verification notes
Set each item of pay in dispute against the pay period and the payment date in the rules of employment and the collective agreement, because the Court turned on the agreement of 8 March 2018 preceding the payment date of 25 March 2018 and the award date of 22 May. Look for any individual consent form for each worker, since the Court let the dismissals of Plaintiffs 2 and 4 stand on that ground. Then read the labour-management agreement of 17 April 2018 together with good faith, as the Court found no error in the finding that it did not extinguish the payment obligation.
From the official text
Points at issue
[1] 이미 구체적으로 지급청구권이 발생한 임금에 대하여 근로자의 개별적인 동의나 수권 없이 노동조합이 사용자와 체결한 단체협약만으로 그 반환이나 포기 및 지급유예와 같은 처분행위를 할 수 있는지 여부(소극) 및 구체적으로 지급청구권이 발생한 임금인지 판단하는 기준 [2] 사용자가 근로의 대상으로 근로자에게 지급하는 금전 중 1월을 초과하는 기간에 의하여 산정되는 수당 등에 관하여 지급하기로 정해진 기일이 있는 경우, 지급기일이 이미 도래하여 구체적으로 지급청구권이 발생한 수당 등에 대하여 근로자의 개별적인 동의나 수권 없이 노동조합이 사용자와 체결한 단체협약만으로 그 반환이나 포기 및 지급유예와 같은 처분행위를 할 수 있는지 여부(소극)
Unofficial English translation
[1] Whether, with respect to wages for which a concrete claim to payment has already arisen, a labor union may, solely on the basis of a collective bargaining agreement concluded with the employer and without the individual consent or authorization of the employee, engage in acts of disposition such as return, waiver, or deferral of payment thereof (negative); and the criteria for determining whether wages are those for which a concrete claim to payment has arisen [2] Where, among monies paid by the employer to employees as consideration for labor, such as allowances calculated by a period exceeding one month, there is a date determined for payment, whether a labor union may, solely on the basis of a collective bargaining agreement concluded with the employer and without the individual consent or authorization of the employee, engage in acts of disposition such as return, waiver, or deferral of payment with respect to allowances etc. for which the payment date has already arrived and a concrete claim to payment has arisen (negative)
Summary of the holding
[1] 근로계약은 근로자가 사용자에게 근로를 제공할 것을 약정하고 사용자는 이에 대하여 임금을 지급할 것을 약정하는 쌍무계약으로(근로기준법 제2조 제1항 제4호), 임금은 매월 1회 이상 일정한 기일을 정하여 지급하여야 한다(근로기준법 제43조 제2항). 이미 구체적으로 지급청구권이 발생한 임금은 근로자의 사적 재산영역으로 옮겨져 근로자의 처분에 맡겨진 것이기 때문에 노동조합이 근로자들로부터 개별적인 동의나 수권을 받지 않는 이상, 사용자와 사이의 단체협약만으로 이에 대한 반환이나 포기 및 지급유예와 같은 처분행위를 할 수는 없다. 이때 구체적으로 지급청구권이 발생하여 단체협약만으로 포기 등을 할 수 없게 되는 임금인지는 근로계약, 취업규칙 등에서 정한 지급기일이 도래하였는지를 기준으로 판단하여야 한다. [2] 사용자가 근로의 대상으로 근로자에게 지급하는 금전 중 1월을 초과하는 기간에 의하여 산정되는 수당 등(근로기준법 제43조 제2항 단서, 같은 법 시행령 제23조)에 관하여 지급하기로 정해진 기일이 있는 경우, 지급기일이 이미 도래하여 구체적으로 지급청구권이 발생한 수당 등은 근로자의 사적 재산영역으로 옮겨져 근로자의 처분에 맡겨진 것이다. 따라서 노동조합이 근로자들로부터 개별적인 동의나 수권을 받지 않는 이상 사용자와 사이의 단체협약만으로 이에 대한 반환, 포기, 지급유예와 같은 처분행위를 할 수 없다.
Order
원심판결의 피고 패소 부분 중 원고 1, 원고 7의 2018년 3월 급여, 원고 1의 근속포상금에 대한 부분을 파기하고, 이 부분 사건을 수원고등법원에 환송한다. 나머지 상고를 기각한다. 상고비용 중 원고 2, 원고 3, 원고 4, 원고 5, 원고 6, 원고 8과 피고 사이에 생긴 부분은 피고가 부담한다.
Unofficial English translation
The portion of the judgment of the court below in which the defendant lost, as to the March 2018 salaries of Plaintiff 1 and Plaintiff 7 and the long-service award of Plaintiff 1, is reversed, and the case as to this portion is remanded to the Suwon High Court. The remainder of the final appeal is dismissed. Of the costs of the final appeal, the portion incurred between Plaintiffs 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 and the defendant shall be borne by the defendant.
Provisions referred to
[1] 근로기준법 제2조 제1항 제4호, 제43조 제2항, 노동조합 및 노동관계조정법 제29조, 제33조 [2] 근로기준법 제2조 제1항 제4호, 제43조 제2항, 근로기준법 시행령 제23조, 노동조합 및 노동관계조정법 제29조, 제33조
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