[Unofficial Korean-to-English translation provided by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre]

"S. Korea: "‘Mass layoffs not justified even after business closure,’ Court upholds principles of redundancy dismissals", 12 August 2024

A recent court ruling has determined that a US-based multinational company's decision to lay off all employees when shutting down part of its operations constituted unfair dismissal.

… The DuPont Group, a US-based multinational corporation, sold its global M&M business unit to Celanese, another US-based multinational corporation in February 2022. … Just before the sale, in October 2021, DuPont Korea abruptly announced the suspension of operations for the W&P division at its Ulsan factory. … Nearly 60 employees in the W&P division lost their jobs overnight.

… The trade union suspects that the closure of W&P was aimed at destroying the union … 99% of those laid off were union members.

… The court highlighted that simply shutting down a business does not justify dismissing all associated workers. It concluded that, considering [the circumstances], there was sufficient capacity to continue employing the dismissed workers.

…Attorney Jia Park, representing [the dismissed workers], commented that the ruling realised the principle that redundancies should be judged strictly, as they are not based on employee fault. Meanwhile, the company has appealed the ruling.