Law: "Company reviewed position dismissal before childcare leave application... Not an unfair personnel action"
[Asia Economy Reporter Heo Kyung-jun] A female employee working at Namyang Dairy Products claimed that she was demoted after returning from parental leave and filed a lawsuit against the labor authorities but ultimately lost the case.
According to the legal community on the 20th, the Supreme Court's First Division (Presiding Justice Park Jeong-hwa) recently upheld the lower court's ruling against employee A of Namyang Dairy Products in the appeal trial she filed against the Chairman of the Central Labor Relations Commission, requesting the cancellation of the "unfair personnel appointment relief reconsideration ruling."
A joined Namyang Dairy Products in 2002 and became the head of the advertising team six years later, in 2008. After taking parental leave for one year in 2016 and returning, the company demoted A to a team member position.
In response, A applied for relief to the local Labor Relations Commission, arguing that assigning her to a team member position despite having a decent personnel evaluation was an unfair personnel action. The local Labor Relations Commission judged that Namyang Dairy Products' exercise of personnel authority was legitimate, and the Central Labor Relations Commission also sided with the company in the reconsideration. A filed a lawsuit in dissatisfaction.
The first trial found that Namyang Dairy Products had given A a personnel disadvantage without just cause, but the second trial ruled the opposite, stating that the company's personnel action was not unfair.
The second trial based its decision on the fact that A was selected as a "special consultation candidate" from 2012 to 2015 according to employee evaluation results, and that the company had already considered dismissing A from her position before she applied for parental leave. It also noted that A continued to receive her previous level of salary after the personnel appointment and that her duties were not unrelated to the advertising team’s work, concluding that the personnel action was not unfair.
The Supreme Court stated, "Although there are some somewhat inappropriate parts in the lower court's judgment, the conclusion is just." The Supreme Court found it difficult to recognize the job assignment ordering A back to a team member position after parental leave as retaliatory personnel action for taking parental leave.
The court pointed out that whether the job order for a returning parental leave employee is legitimate should be judged in two stages, and that the second trial did not properly go through these stages. However, since the job order itself cannot be considered retaliatory personnel action for parental leave, the Supreme Court ruled that the second trial’s conclusion that the job order was valid is just.
Meanwhile, A appeared as a witness at the National Assembly’s Ministry of Employment and Labor audit in October last year while this trial was ongoing, stating, "When I joined, Namyang Dairy Products required female employees to sign a pledge to give up pregnancy," which led the Ministry of Employment and Labor to conduct a special inspection.
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