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[News] "Shared Economy and Labor – Rights of Union"

Let's talk about the right to unite this time after the As we looked at earlier, 'workability' meant individual labor relations, while the right to unite explains collective labor relations. The right of unity is a relationship in which workers can unite, organize trade unions, and engage in collective bargaining (group bargaining) with companies. In the case of unions by enterprises, it is the Supreme Court's ruling that labor unions are a prerequisite, but in the case of super-company unions (e.g., industrial and regional unions), the labor union and labor relationship coordination law can recognize workers even though they are not employees under the Labor base law. 


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However, as with the previous cases of labor cases or legal disputes, there is no case of the right to unite workers in shared economic services in Korea. Let's take a look at the U.S. In December 2015, the U.S. city of Seattle passed the first U.S. ordinance to guarantee the right to unite drivers in driving-sharing services. This ordinance is based on the selection of representatives by a certain number of drivers and the city's designation of their fellow drivers, and the scope of the negotiations is set up by the city to obtain collective bargaining rights by organizing labor unions when the majority of the participants are signed within 120 days. 


How did the U.S. society accept the above Seattle ordinance? The result was negative. Immediately after the ordinance was passed, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Industry sued Uber and others for violating antitrust laws. The case was rejected twice, but the Chamber of Commerce appealed again, and the Ninth Federal Appeal Act ordered the suspension of the ordinance until the appeal was terminated in 2017.9. This guarantee of unity may lead to the return of some of the relationship between shared economic enterprises and service providers as platform providers. I think we need to determine whether going back to the labor relations that existed between labor and management will help the development of a shared economy or be a poison. So in this case, I think there's a reason why the world is watching. 

Over the past and this time, we looked at labor law issues related to the shared economy. While the status of a service provider in a shared economy may be advantageous in improving the poor position of one of the participants in a shared economy, the openness, creativity and innovation of a shared economic platform may be largely eliminated, including the obligation of the service provider as an employer as opposed to a traditional enterprise. 

As there are no legal disputes in Korea, it is difficult to apply them to Korea. Platform operators, service providers and customers alike need to be fully prepared, as there is room for future issues. 

The above text is based on the article "Share Economy and Labor Issues" written by Chung-jung, a law firm.