The KHMU signed the year 2020 industry-level collective bargaining agreement

 

At 1:00 PM on July 22(Wed), the KHMU bargaining delegation conducted a signing ceremony at Saengmyeong Hall to celebrate the signing of the industry-level collective bargaining agreement.

 

With the first meeting with the employers’ delegation started on May 27, the Korean health sector union had five rounds of discussions and negotiations with their counter party by July 1 (Wed.).

 

The labor and management closed the position gap on the issues of ▲ No Lay-off, ▲Regularization of Irregular Job Positions, ▲ Protection of Labor Rights and Safety, ▲ Joint-Effort by the Labor and Management to Solve the COVID-19 led Issues and ▲ a Sufficient Level of Health and Medical Staff. In addition, as a follow-up measure for the industry-level negotiation, the joint-fund collected by both labor and management will be invested into a research project: Research on Wage Conditions of Health Workers or Research on How to Improve the Work Shift System and Cut the Working Hours.

 

This year’s agreement highlights protection of health workers’ labor rights, as reflected in the agreed item that stipulates prohibition of layoff during the COIVD-19 outbreaks. The two parties agreed that layoff of directly or indirectly hired workers’ jobs should be safe in this disaster nationwide, hence, either termination of outsourced workers’ contracts or layoff of permanent workers should be prohibited.

 

In the meantime, the employers’ representatives also agreed that they would make effort not to expand irregular job positions and covert some positions on safety and life-related and constantly occurring jobs to regular job positions. Plus, paid-leave for those who need a leave due to reasons led by their jobs for infectious disease prevention, isolation or responses, while assuring that workers take full and enough rest. They also agreed that both labor and management will come up with an agreement on manpower adjustment and operations in preparation with possibly prolonged COIVD-19 spread.

 

This year, around 40 medical institutions including regional medical clinics, private small and medium sized hospitals and public hospitals for special purposes sent their representatives to the negotiation table. No delegation from private university hospitals and national university hospitals attended the meetings even up the request of the KHMU.