선원최저임금 결정절차 개선방안에 관한 연구

Minimum wage is the minimum payment for a worker to lead a decent life. A decent life is about more than being able to pay for basic necessities of food, clothing, and shelter, to include enjoyment of one’s social and cultural life. One’s decent life to this level requires wages at a minimum level, but there are in fact a class of people not ensured of minimum wages due to conflicts among various stakeholders and social inequality. The awareness of the situation has led to a call to make payment of minimum wage legally binding. The Korean Constitution has an explicit statement about enforcement of minimum wage system and requires to determine minimum wage based on the Minimum Wage Act. Accordingly, the minimum wage for a worker is deliberated and decided through the Minimum Wage Commission under the Ministry of Labor and Employment, whose legal ground for establishment is the Minimum Wage Act. However, the Act technically does not cover seafarers and ship owners employing seafarers. The minimum wage of seafarers is announced based on the Seafarers’ Act, but the deliberation process and criteria to determine the minimum wage is not specified. The impact of seafarers’ minimum wage has been growing so much on the shipping industry and the seafarers’ community that the minimum wage-setting procedures should be laid out quickly to ensure objectivity and legitimacy of the wage. In this regard, this study looks into the issues on how to determine the minimum wage for seafarers and proposes a direction for revision of the Seafarers’ Act. To this end, this study conducted comparative analysis of the minimum wage system grounded on the Minimum Wage Act and the minimum wage system based on the Seafarers’ Act, and reviewed critical problems. Improvement ideas for policy and legislation are also presented in this study to better define the minimum wage for seafarers.