Differentiation in Retirement Ages for Certain Job Categories is Discriminatory
The National Human Rights Commission of Korea(NHRCK) viewed that setting the retirement ages of certain job categories differently from others without justifiable causes is discriminatory and recommended Korea Electric Power Corporation(KEPCO) revise its Regulations on Positions in Extraordinary Service that apply different retirement age to employees in “extraordinary occupational service”.
In January 2010, an official in the “extraordinary service” at KEPCO filed a complaint to the NHRCK, stating "officials in extraordinary service have to retire when they turn 56 unlike the ordinary employees who retire at age 58. It is discriminatory to set the retirement age differently just because the job category is different, even though we have worked for the company for years."
According to the investigation of the NHRCK, KEPCO has 17,800 employees in ordinary service and 2,200 officials in extraordinary service. The retirement age of the ordinary employees is set at 58, while that of the extraordinary officials is 56. This is, according to the respondent (KEPCO), for effective management of human resources as the nature of each task is different.
The result of the NHRCK investigation, however, indicated no proof that the officials in extraordinary service lose the ability to perform duties two years earlier. The claim of the KEPCO that the difficulty and responsibilities of the tasks differ between the ordinary employees and the extraordinary officials does not explain that those officials should terminate their employment two years earlier.
KEPCO further maintained that the labor cost would rise if the retirement age of the officials in extraordinary service were equally set as that of the ordinary employees. The NHRCK viewed that it is not reasonable that only the officials in extraordinary service are treated unfairly in order to achieve a common goal of reducing labor cost.
Therefore, the NHRCK decided that KEPCO violated equal rights which is guaranteed in Article 11 of the Constitution, and thus recommended a revision to Regulations on Positions in Extraordinary Service.
