Review of Labor Law Issues Surrounding the Restructuring of Universities

This article examines the issue of dismissal for business reasons, a highly likely consequence of university faculty being dismissed from their positions at financially distressed universities, even if they haven't gone bankrupt, from a labor law perspective. Before the university restructuring period, university faculty in Korea were generally treated as outside the scope of labor law. Instead, there was a strong tendency to believe that their status was sufficiently governed by education-related laws, such as the Private School Act and the Higher Education Act. However, these laws were enacted during a period of continuous quantitative growth in Korean higher education institutions, and many of their provisions are inappropriate for the current university environment, which has entered a period of restructuring. Then, in 2018, the Constitutional Court ruled that university faculty have the right to organize. With the restructuring period upon us, there was no choice but to actively incorporate university faculty into the protections of labor law. Around the same time, the need for appropriate legislative reforms to education-related laws also emerged, fueled by the restructuring. One such outcome was the &quotAct on Support for Structural Improvement of Private Universities.&quot The Private University Restructuring Support Act reveals that the restructuring of our universities has become a very real issue. Therefore, we examined the labor law issues related to university faculty that arose with the <br/>enactment of the &quotAct on Support for Restructuring Private Universities.&quot Ultimately, this labor law issue concerned whether Article 56, Paragraph 1 of the Private School Act, which previously recognized the possibility of closure and dismissal, could remain the sole provision protecting faculty in the face of university restructuring that entails dismissals for business reasons.<br/> This article focuses on the legal doctrine of dismissal for business reasons and examines its applicability to faculty at private universities, particularly those facing financial difficulties. In conclusion, we confirm that the legal doctrine of dismissal for business reasons can be applied without issue to mergers and consolidations of departments or faculties, closures of departments, and transfers of educational businesses to prevent financial distress.