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[Recent Court Case 11] The agreement for service expenses between the water purifier company and maintenance engineers cannot be regarded as a comprehensive wage agreement, and the company must pay the engineers weekly holiday allowance, holiday work allowance, etc.

2020.02.19

[Case No. Ulsan District Court 2018kahap24567 decided on February 19, 2020] 
 
The defendant was a company which manufactured, sold, and leased water purifiers, and the plaintiffs carried out tasks such as replacing filters, inspecting, repairing, and installing new water purifiers, after signing the service management contract with the defendant.  The plaintiffs claimed statutory allowances under the Labor Standards Act such as holiday work allowance, weekly holiday allowance, and annual leave allowance.  The defendant argued that the service management contract was a comprehensive wage agreement that includes all the statutory allowances according to their monthly performance and number of sales, and there were no leftover unpaid allowances.   
 
The Ulsan District Court confirmed its previous position that an employer and an employee  may enter into a comprehensive wage agreement in which the amount of statutory allowances is all included, when it is exceptionally difficult to calculate work hours due to working hours, the type of work, and nature of work.  But it is valid only when it is not disadvantageous to employees and it is deemed justifiable considering all the circumstances. 
 
Subsequently, the court decided that the contract between the plaintiffs and the defendant was not deemed a comprehensive wage contract, considering following points: 
 
①  the plaintiffs’ work was not limited in space, but you could still calculate their work hours without difficulty; ② if you regarded it as a comprehensive wage agreement, it was practically disadvantageous to the employees since the defendant did not consider whether and how often their work was done at night or on holidays when setting their allowances; ③ there were no other benefits given to the plaintiffs to offset the statutory allowances. 
 
Furthermore, the court also found that the defendant was obliged to pay weekly allowances, and also holiday work allowances to the extent it was proven that the plaintiffs had provided labor on weekly holidays.

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