KHMU BATTLE HEALTH COMMERCIALISATION AND BARGAINING
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(2007) This year, the Korean Health & Medical Workers' Union (KHMU) has faced critical struggles on two fronts. The first struggle is to stop the retrogressive revision of a medical law aiming at commercializing the health sector. Another one is to amicably conclude the 2007 national bargaining.
The draft medical bill which Korean government submitted to the National Assembly last May would allow hospitals to become a profit-making corporation. So far, the medical law which was enacted in 1963 has maintained hospitals as a noncommercial corporation.
Since the government submitted the draft bill to the National Assembly, KHMU has organized public campaigns against it with the cooperation of civic groups, and have succeeded in making the National Assembly suspend the legislative procedure in the June extra session. KHMU gained a provisional victory in the struggle of medical legislation, but another round of struggle is waiting for KHMU workers in the coming September when a regular session of the National Assembly will start.
2007 national bargaining is in a deadlock at the moment. KHMU has tried to make a collective agreement with hospital employers since April when the national bargaining started. But no meaningful progress been made. Hospital employers have failed to make a unified proposal to KHMU in the negotiation.
In June the KHMU workers overwhelmingly approved the union program of collective action in rank-and-file member voting. On 27 June the National Labor Relations Commission recommended a mediation acceptable to union side. Unfortunately, the mediation was rejected by hospital employers. KHMU staged a partial strike on 28 and 29 June in which 6,000 KHMU members came to downtown Seoul to join a rally. Some hospital employers have expressed their intention to accept the mediation of national commission, while hard-liners have opposed any compromise with the union, especially in the agenda of equal treatment for irregular workers.
On 3 and 4 July KHMU organized a meeting of local union chairs to develop a program to break the deadlock situation in collective bargaining. KHMU is developing a plan to mobilize at least 4,000 members to organize a series of rally in the target hospitals. Finally, KHMU will do its best to conclude the 2007 national bargaining with the following results: to establish a national bargaining system in hospital sector; to improve working conditions of irregular workers and guarantee employment security for irregular workers, and to strengthen the national structure of KHMU as industrial union.