I. Background

In order to strengthen labor inspections in the implementation of labor laws and to give transparency in labor inspections to the extent that the state of legal compliance of businesses can be known to the general public, amendments have been made to Article 80-1 of the Labor Standards Act and parts of the Labor Inspection Act (hereinafter the “LSA” and the “LIA” respectively) on May 22, 2020, which were promulgated on June 10, 2020 and became effective on June 12, 2020.

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II. Key Points of the Amendments

(I) Article 80-1 of the Labor Standards Act

For the business entity that is fined for violations of the Act, the original provision only required that the competent authority shall publicly announce the name of such business entity or its owner(s) and the person(s) in charge. Such provision caused a discrepancy between the disclosures by the central government and the local government. Moreover, since the original provision made it impossible for the general public to know the degree of violation by the business entity, having referenced Article 53-1 of the Labor Pension Act, the amendment requires that, in addition to the name of such business entity or its owner(s) and the person(s) in charge, announcements shall be made of the date of the disposition, the provisions violated and the amount of the fine.

Since the public information from the “Query System for Business Entities in Contravention of Labor Regulations and Laws” set up by the Ministry of Labor has included the“announcement date,"“disposition date,” “disposition number,“regulation or law violated,”and“content of contravention,” the difference made through the amendment is the additional information available to the general public of the“amount of fine”of cases starting from June 12, 2020 on.

(II) Paragraph 3 of Article 7 of the Labor Inspection Act

In addition to publicizing the business entities that violated labor laws, the amendment to the LIA added Paragraph 3 of Article 7 to provide that the central competent authority shall regularly publish an annual report of labor inspection to make available to the public the enforcement results of the labor inspection projects and the related comparison and analyses thereof.

(III) Article 35 of the Labor Inspection Act

To make it easier for the labor inspectors when conducting labor inspections, the amendment was made to Article 35 of the Labor Inspection Act to impose consecutive fines per violation to business entities that refuse, avoid or obstruct the enforcement of inspection by a labor inspector, in order to strengthen the enforcement of labor inspections, promote compliance to labor laws and regulations, and protect labor rights. .

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III. Conclusion

In fact, prior to the amendment, competent authorities of labor affairs had been publishing related information that was outside of what the law required, and imposing consecutive fines per violation on business entities that refused, circumvented or obstructed the enforcement of inspection. Still, this amendment has laid the legal ground to such practices and thus enhanced the degree of enforcement of labor inspections.

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