South Korean court orders POSCO to hire subcontracted workers
· UPIJuly 16 (Asia Today) -- South Korea's Supreme Court ruled Thursday that POSCO must directly employ most of the subcontracted workers involved in two long-running lawsuits after finding that they had effectively worked under the steelmaker's direction.
The Supreme Court's Second Division upheld lower court rulings that partially favored 378 current and former employees of POSCO subcontractors at the company's Pohang and Gwangyang steel mills.
The rulings established POSCO's obligation to directly employ the workers, excluding those who had passed the mandatory retirement age and four employees of POSCO M-TECH who packaged cold-rolled steel products.
The workers filed the lawsuits arguing that although they were formally employed by outside contractors, they performed their jobs under POSCO's supervision and instructions.
At issue was whether their employment constituted worker dispatch arrangements between POSCO and the subcontractor employees.
South Korea's Act on the Protection of Temporary Agency Workers requires a company to directly employ a dispatched worker when the worker has been used for more than two years.
The trial court recognized such a relationship for the plaintiffs, excluding 12 workers who had reached retirement age.
The appeals court largely agreed but ruled against four POSCO M-TECH employees responsible for packaging cold-rolled products. It said there was insufficient evidence that they had received substantial instructions or supervision from POSCO.
The appeals court found that POSCO M-TECH possessed independent experience and technical expertise. It also said POSCO likely relied substantially on the subsidiary when preparing or revising work standards and specifications for packaging operations.
The Supreme Court upheld that conclusion.
The court said the appeals court did not misunderstand the law or fail to conduct a necessary review when it determined that most of the workers had provided labor for POSCO under the company's direction and therefore had been part of worker dispatch arrangements.
Employees of POSCO contractors have filed 10 rounds of lawsuits over alleged illegal labor dispatch practices since 2011.
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of 59 workers involved in the first and second rounds of litigation in July 2022.
In April, the court upheld rulings favoring 215 workers in the third and fourth lawsuits but returned the cases of seven POSCO M-TECH employees to a lower court with instructions to rule against them.
Thursday's decisions involved the fifth lawsuit and part of the seventh.
In separate proceedings involving the sixth lawsuit and another part of the seventh, the Supreme Court declined to hear POSCO's appeals, finalizing rulings in favor of 88 workers.
Trial court proceedings remain underway in the eighth through 10th lawsuits, which involve 1,177 plaintiffs.
-- Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI
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Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260716010006100