Calculation Method for Weekly Overtime Work Limits, First Supreme Court Ruling
"It Is Natural to Interpret as Exceeding One Week of Work"
For the first time, a court has ruled that compliance with the 52-hour workweek system should be calculated based on the total weekly working hours.
According to the legal community on the 25th, Mr. A was prosecuted for violating the Labor Standards Act and the Employee Retirement Benefit Security Act by having workers work overtime beyond the limit a total of 130 times from 2013 to 2016, and failing to pay retirement allowances and overtime pay on time.
The first and second trials partially recognized the charges as guilty and sentenced him to a fine of 1 million won, to which Mr. A appealed.
The employees at the company operated by Mr. A worked in a pattern of working three days followed by one day off. Accordingly, they usually worked five days a week, but sometimes worked three, four, or even six days.
Although this was before the implementation of the 52-hour workweek system, the legal working hour limit was a maximum of 52 hours since they did not work on holidays.
The appellate court calculated the overtime hours exceeding 8 hours per day separately and then summed them. In this case, if a worker worked 15 hours on two days and 6 hours on three days in a week, the total weekly overtime hours would be 14 hours, which constitutes a violation of the Labor Standards Act.
However, the Supreme Court's judgment was different. The Supreme Court's 2nd Division (Presiding Justice Min Yu-sook) partially overturned and remanded Mr. A's charges on the grounds of not guilty.
The Supreme Court explained, “The Labor Standards Act sets the limit for overtime hours based on a one-week period only, and it is not based on a daily standard,” adding, “It is natural to interpret overtime under the Labor Standards Act as work exceeding the standard working hours in one week.”
In other words, regardless of how many hours were worked in a day, the violation of the Labor Standards Act should be judged based on whether the total weekly working hours exceed 40 hours and reach a total of 52 hours.
According to this calculation, the worker’s weekly overtime hours amount to 8 hours, which does not constitute a violation of the Labor Standards Act.
Accordingly, the Supreme Court overturned and remanded the case, stating, “It is difficult to conclude that 3 out of the 109 times recognized as overtime violations by the appellate court exceeded the overtime limit.”
A Supreme Court official explained, “There were various methods mixed in lower court rulings and in practice regarding how to calculate the 12-hour weekly overtime limit,” and added, “This is the first ruling that deems the method based on working hours exceeding 40 hours per week as reasonable.”
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