초록/요약

This article examines the issue of who should be considered the legal employer in subcontracting employment relationships, especially the question of who should bear the burden of collective bargaining in the context of outsourcing of employer responsibilities towards subcontracting employees' trade union. The Korean National Labor Relations Commission(NLRC) recently issued an important decision regarding the distribution of employer responsibility between contracting employer and subcontracting employer. It is concluded that contracting employer may have assumed the subtracting employer's duty of collective bargaining under some strict requirements even though contracting employer does not have any express or implicit employment contract with subcontracting employees; further, that in that case for the purpose of collective bargaining, he should bear partial and joint employer status with subcontracting employer. This article suggests that even though this NLRC's decision has a few loopholes to be filled in, it still shows great achievements towards constructive relations between subcontracting employees and contracting companies. The partial and joint employers doctrine will be useful to establish the contracting companies' responsibilities while hiding behind the legal entity of the subcontracting employer, having concrete and substantial influences on the subcontracting employees' terms and conditions of employment.