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Dismissed workers from Bosch Electrical Drives rally outside the company as part of a 100-day campaign calling for their reinstatement on Oct. 17

The Supreme Court upheld guilty rulings against the multilateral automobile parts company Bosch Electrical Drives and its CEO and other executives on charges of improper labor practices for abusing a multiple union system to discriminate against and neutralize its existing union by actively supporting a second union.

The ruling comes six years after the Korean Metal Workers’ Union (KMWU) first lodged a complaint and three years after the case first reached the Supreme Court.

The court’s second division under Justice Park Sang-ok ruled on Sept. 27 that it had upheld the original court’s ruling in an appellate trial for Bosch and its former CEO Lee Man-haeng, 59, and other officials convicted of violations of the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act after their indictment on charges of improper acts of control and interference, including various forms of discrimination.

Lee and the company were originally sentenced to fines of 5 million won (US$4,500), with additional fines of 3 million won (US$2,700) each against the human resources/labor affairs director and vice president, respectively a 58-year-old surnamed Son and a 57-year-old surnamed Shin.

In Dec. 2017, the Supreme Court upheld a sentence of 14 months in prison and a fine of 1 million won (US$900) against Ryu Shi-young, president of the automobile parts company Yoosung Enterprise, on charges of improper labor practices including the creation of a “company union” to suppress the existing union and lock out the workplace as part of a union-busting effort on advice from the group Creative Consulting. Guilty rulings were also upheld against Yoosung’s labor affairs official and factory director.

Suppliers for Hyundai Motor alongside Valeo Mando and Sangsin Brake, Bosch and Yoosung are considered chief examples of Creative Consulting – a company renowned for its union-busting strategies – being enlisted to suppress existing unions through various tactics. Creative Consulting’s use of the approach of creating company-led unions rather than the existing industry-based unions in a de facto union-busting strategy around the time of the launch of multiple unions was previously confirmed through the company’s advisory documents and court rulings.

Located in Cheongwon, North Chungcheong Province, Bosch has had a first union as a chapter of KMWU since 1987. After the multiple union system was introduced in July 2011, the company signed an advisory contract for 50 million won (US$45,000) with Creative Consulting the following November. As conceived in documents drafted by Creative Consulting and Bosch, a second Bosch company union was formed on Feb. 22, 2012. Between Feb. 24 and Mar. 3, 210 members of the first union left to join the second.

On the following Mar. 7 payday, Bosch and then CEO Lee Man-haeng delivered union dues deducted from members’ wages not to the first union, but to the second – which had yet to even complete its establishment procedures. After establishing a collective agreement with the second union in 2013 stipulating the payment of 4.2 million won (US$3,780) each in incentives, the company then presented the first union with another collective agreement plan with less advantageous terms than the ones granted to the second union.

Lee also ordered a total of 1,373 hours of lunch hour work without the labor union’s consent between Dec. 2011 and Jan. 2012 – prior to the additional union’s establishment – for inventory work in anticipation of a possible strike. Contracted employees were sent to work between July 2011 and Jan. 2012 without the safety and health education prescribed in the collective agreement. The actions were in violation of the collective agreement, which guarantees a 60-minute lunch period and safety and health education even for contracted employees.

In the first and second trials, the courts convicted the defendants of exerting influence on union organizing and activities by providing the union dues deduction from wages to the second union rather than the first; violating the obligation of employer neutrality by presenting the first union with a collective agreement including worse terms than those in its agreement with the second union; violating the collective agreement by having employees work during lunch hours without union consent; and violating the collective agreement by having contracted employees performing the same duties as regular workers without safety and health education.

In their rulings, the courts ruled that the acts constituted “improper labor control and interference with the intent of influencing union organizing and activities.”

But the same courts also acquitted the company on charges of criticizing the first union 18 times in company newsletters published between January and July 2012, citing a “lack of evidence indicating an attempt to control or influence the first union’s organizing efforts or management.”

With its decision, the Supreme Court upheld all of the original courts’ rulings.

By Yeo Hyeon-ho, senior staff writer

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