A court ruled that the Korea District Heating Corporation's measure of moving an employee reported as a workplace bullying perpetrator to Naju, 280 kilometers from the employee's home, to separate the person from the victims was unjustified. The court found that the corporation skipped procedures and imposed excessive living disadvantages.
The 11th Administrative Panel of the Seoul Administrative Court (Presiding Judge Kim Jun-young, senior judge) on the 17th ruled against the Korea District Heating Corporation in a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Central Labor Relations Commission's (CLRC) decision in a retrial over an unfair transfer remedy. The court upheld the retrial decision that sided with A (supplementary participant).
The Korea District Heating Corporation is a state-run company with about 2,000 employees working at its Seongnam headquarters and in five regions including the capital area, Chungcheong, Gyeongsang, and Honam. A joined in 2006 and worked at the Paju branch from Sept. 2023. On Dec. 18, 2023, five coworkers reported A to the audit office as a workplace bullying perpetrator and requested separation measures.
Two days later, the audit office asked the Human Resources and Education Department for separation measures, and the corporation transferred A the next day, Dec. 21, to the Gwangju-Jeonnam branch (Naju). A applied for relief to the Gyeonggi Regional Labor Relations Commission (Gyeonggi RLRC), saying there was no business necessity and only severe living disadvantages, and the Gyeonggi RLRC accepted this in Mar. 2024. The same conclusion was reached in a CLRC retrial in July that year, filed by the corporation.
The court also found the corporation's action excessive. The court said, "While the need to separate A from the complainants is recognized, it is hard to see that a transfer was absolutely necessary." It noted that temporary separation methods such as placing A on standby were not considered, and that A was on leave at the time and thus not immediately sharing a workspace. As the determination of workplace bullying had not yet been confirmed, an immediate transfer should have been approached with caution.
The ruling also emphasized that even if a transfer were unavoidable, there were ample other worksites the corporation could have chosen. Including the Paju branch, there are 14 branches and offices just in the capital area, but the corporation did not review these and immediately decided on a transfer to Naju, categorized as a remote location. The court found that "it cannot be ruled out that the corporation carried out the transfer to alleviate the unpopularity of remote postings."
Living disadvantages were also a decisive factor. A lives in Hwaseong and had been commuting about 80 kilometers to Paju, but Naju is about 280 kilometers away, making commuting virtually impossible. The court also considered that monthly housing costs of around 1 million won would be added to long-distance travel expenses. The court ruled that this "far exceeds the level that an ordinary worker should be expected to endure."