Supreme Court: "Welfare Card Points Are Not Ordinary Wages... Not Reflected in Parental Leave Pay Calculation"

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[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daehyun] The Supreme Court has ruled that welfare card points are not included in the ordinary wages used as the basis for calculating parental leave pay. Ordinary wages refer to the regular, uniform, and fixed wages paid by a company to workers as compensation for prescribed work.

On the 21st, the Supreme Court's First Division (Presiding Justice Lee Gitaek) announced that it upheld the lower court's ruling in favor of plaintiffs in the appeal case filed by workers A and B of the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service against the cancellation of partial non-payment of parental leave pay by the Anyang branch of the Central Regional Employment and Labor Office.

Previously, A took parental leave for 12 months starting November 2010, and B did the same starting September 2012. The Service paid each of them about 7 million won as parental leave pay.

Subsequently, A and others requested that bonuses, long-term service allowances, transportation subsidies, and welfare card points be included in the ordinary wages and that parental leave pay be recalculated based on this, but the Service refused.

The first trial ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. It stated that all items claimed by the plaintiffs, including bonuses and welfare card points, should be included in the ordinary wages to recalculate parental leave pay, and that the difference from the already paid amount should be additionally received.

At that time, the court emphasized, "Whether a wage falls under ordinary wages should be judged based on whether the wage is a payment regularly, uniformly, and fixedly made to workers as compensation for prescribed work," and added, "The fact that the payment was not made immediately after the prescribed working hours does not mean it is not compensation for prescribed work." The second trial also agreed with this judgment.

The Supreme Court also found the lower court's conclusion, which ordered the cancellation of the Service's refusal to additionally pay parental leave pay, to be just. However, unlike bonuses and long-term service allowances, it pointed out that welfare card points do not qualify as ordinary wages.

The court stated, "Considering the restricted usage and the characteristic that welfare points expire if not used within one year, welfare points do not correspond to wages as defined by the Labor Standards Act," and added, "Therefore, it is reasonable to view that they do not qualify as ordinary wages."