Korean Female KTX rail attendants win ruling on injunction
Female KTX rail attendants win ruling on injunction
Court says Korail is the attendants’ real employer, but long court battle for their reinstatement is likely to follow
» KTX attendants urge Korail protest at Seoul Station on September 11. The women, who are irregular workers employed by a company called Korail Retail, want Korail to directly hire them as employees. Recently, the court accepted the women’s application for an injunction against Korail, finding that Korail is their actual employer and Korail Retail is just a division of the company.
A court ruling has said that the Korea Railroad Corporation, or Korail, is the real employer of the KTX female attendant crew. Following verdicts in previous criminal cases, the court has now clearly taken the side of the KTX female attendants in the case to determine “worker status” as well. As a result, attention is focusing on whether a first step will be provided toward solving a problem that has dragged on for over 1,000 days.
The Seoul Central District Court’s 50th civil agreements division (Judge Lee Dong-myeong) accepted an application for an injunction Tuesday submitted by 34 female KTX attendants, including Oh Mi-sun, who was fired in 2006. The injunction was filed against Korail and demanded that they acknowledge being the real employers of the female attendants and pay wages.
The court declared, “Korail Retail, which established a formal labor contract with the female attendants, is a mere operational division of Korail with no individuality or independence and thus only a labor agency.” The court also stated, “Korail, the real employer, directly employs the female attendants and was provided with their labor services.”
As reasons for this, the court cited the fact that: Korail participated directly in hiring, education, work evaluation and assignment; Korail temporarily transferred female attendants to various Korail events; Korail provided the equipment necessary for the performance of duties; and the newly formed customer service trust company KTX Tourism Leisure was deemed to have no business validity after a probe by the Board of Audit and Inspection.
The court effectively placed importance on the possibility of “illegal labor dispatching.” The decision went in a different direction from the judgment in a previous investigation of the KTX attendant issue by the Labor Ministry, in which the contracts were deemed “lawful” and Korail was judged not to be the real employer.
Based on this decision, the court stated that “because the female attendants did not change affiliation from Korail Retail to KTX Tourism Leisure, their firing is null and void.” The court also ruled that Korail must pay 1.8 million a month won to the former employees until the decision on the case is settled.
But this does not mean that Oh and the other workers are to be immediately reinstated. Korail announced that “only when the decision on the lawsuit comes out can the question of their direct employment be settled.” What came out Tuesday was a decision on the injunction, while no decision has been reached on the lawsuit filed against Korail by Oh and the other workers November 25 for confirmation of worker status and wage payment. The legal battle could drag on further even after the first trial verdict.
A Korail executive said, “Fundamentally, we have an active intention of resolving the issue of the KTX female attendants.” The executive added that Korail would even follow the first trial decision if the court’s decision on the case is reasonable.
In 2004, Korail hired 351 female attendants through Hongikhoe, which was entrusted with KTX customer service (its duties were subsequently transferred to Korail Retail, a Korail subsidiary). But following the announcement of a change in firms to KTX Tourism Leisure, Oh and other attendants were fired when they did not transfer over. In 2006, over 380 KTX female attendants, including Oh, began their fight, demanding “regularization of work at Korail.” Presently, 34 individuals remain following repeated fasts and tent protests.
In December 2007, Korail and the Korean Railway Workers’ Union drafted a provisional labor-management agreement structured around “direct hiring as labor contract positions,” but just before signing, the company withdrew the proposal, citing reasons such as the resignation of then-president Lee Chul. At the last labor-management discussion in September, Korail proposed “assisting with employment at a subsidiary,” but the female attendants rejected this and filed for an injunction at the Seoul Central District Court in October.
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