■
Social Bargaining for All Health and Medical Workers
In
the meantime, this year is the first time when the KHMU negotiates with
employers <basic labor rights for every health worker> in order to
improve working conditions of one million medical workers. That is, the
negotiation is conducted even for non-union member workers in small and medium
sized hospitals to ensure all workers enjoy fundamental labor rights. With
this, the KHMU would put a stepping stone to “resolve inequality and social
polarization, minimize blind spots that the basic labor standards don’t apply
to, protect socially marginalized groups, narrow the gap in working conditions
between workers in different positions and situations, and strengthen solidarity
among workers”.
To
this end, the KHMU had conducted a survey from April 15 to May 17 on <Actual
Working Conditions of Workers in Small and Medium Sized Hospitals>. Based on
the survey results, the industry-level health union will develop activities to
improve policies and laws related to working conditions. The result of the
survey will be presented in <Discussion on Basic Labor Rights of Health
Workers at the National Assembly> on July 5. In addition, the KHMU plans to
request negotiations on basic labor rights to the associations of Korean
medical doctors and hospitals while having meetings with the governmental
agencies and national assembly men and women.
■
Industry-level bargaining with employers from 76 entities is in progress. In
case of breakdown of the negotiation, we will get into the general strike at
the end of August.
In
the meantime, the KHMU and the management of hospitals have been joining collective
bargaining at the industry level on Wednesday biweekly since the inception of the
kick-off meeting on May 11. The bargaining is participated by employers of 76
medical institutions that include 38 special purpose public hospitals (National
Medical Center, National Cancer Center, etc.) , 26 regional medical centers
(Gyeonggi-do Medical Center, Bupyeong Serim Hospital, etc.), and 12 private
small and medium sized hospitals. The meeting saw six more hospitals in the
negotiation table compared to 70 institutions last year.
Continuing
from last year, employers of both private and national university hospitals did
not participate in the industrial collective bargaining. A total of union
branches of 7 national university hospitals called on their management to come
out to the negotiation table but employers have not responded to this request. Hence,
the branches reaffirmed that they would proceed their bargaining at each
workplace based on the common requests set in the current industry-level
bargaining table. The KHMU will keep fighting and working hard with the union
branches of national university hospitals until the common requests are fully
satisfied.
For
private university hospitals, the negotiation is going on at the moment at the
site level without joining in the industrial bargaining. Hence, the KHMU has
proposed labor-management policy sessions and joint workshops as a policy
framework is essential to resolve the policy issues and come up with new
measures.
In
addition to the industrial collective bargaining, sectoral negotiations are
also in progress, joined by workers and employers from private small and medium
sized hospitals and regional medical centers, while each union branch-based
bargaining is taking place at the same time.
The
major requests of the KHMU contain the followings:
▲
wage increase by 7.6% (fixed amount – 300,000 KRW)
▲
minimum wage – 11,141 KRW
▲
(practical implementation of September 2 Agreement between Labor and
Government) compliance with the staffing standard during COVID-19 pandemic,
eradication of illegal medical practices, overall execution of the 5 - day
workweek system
▲
(improvement in working conditions) restriction to night shift work (up to six
times per month), substitute nurse system, prohibition of one-person work,
payment for night shift nursing fee, payment for holiday allowances, conversion
of contract job positions to permanent ones for jobs that require permanent patient
services
The
industrial collective bargaining sessions took place four times in total up to
now but the parties have yet to reach an agreement on most of core agenda. The
KHMU continue to be faithful in the negotiations to achieve an agreement but if
the agreement is not reached till the end of negotiations, every branch of the
industry-level union will apply for a dispute settlement all together at the
same time on August 9 and get into the general strike on August 25. The union
branches of private and national university hospitals, of which managements
don’t attend the industry-level collective bargaining, will also join in the
application of dispute settlement as their negotiations are also going on now
at each hospital level.