Labor-management tensions are increasing with the heads of hospitals attached to state and private universities either completely refusing to participate in negotiations with the Korea Health and Medical Workers Union over wage increases or sending a certified public labor attorney (CPLA) as a “representative.” It’s regretful that employers, who have cried for maturity in labor-management relations citing “discomfort to patients” each and every time a strike has broken out, should be actively encouraging discord between labor and management.
Up till now, health workers and management have conducted five negotiations, but with national university hospitals refusing to participate, and private university hospitals sending a CPLA as representative, the negations are proceeding at a snail’s pace. Moreover, with small and mid-sized hospitals warning that if tensions between labor and the private university hospitals over the CPLA issue continue, they will not be able to participate in negotiations, the industry-wide negotiations themselves are in danger. This is the reason why the health workers go on the streets and conduct all-night sit-down strikes in hospitals. The employers said that since it would be difficult to select a specific hospital as representative, they named a CPLA as representative, but this isn’t persuasive. This is even more so because during last year’s industry-wide negotiations, the hospitals agreed to form a “developed employers’ group.” Nobody would be convinced that a single CPLA would represent a “developed employers’ group.”
Industry-wide labor-management negations in Korea have only just begun. For such negotiations to take root, employers need to change their attitudes just as much as the unions. As the negotiations aren’t disadvantageous to the employers only, this is even more the case. With distrust between labor and management running deep, for the employers to send as their representative a CPLA could only make the problem worse. It’s worrying that the CPLA is walking away from the negotiating table after protests from the union and suggesting to other private hospital heads that they walk away as well, and in fact, the hospital heads are missing from negotiations.
The health industry negotiations, in which tensions have begun right from the negotiation format, forecast that this year’s salary negotiations will not be smooth. Slow negotiations ultimately lead to strikes and discomfort to patients. We call on the university hospital heads to join sincere negotiations, even now.
The Hankyoreh, 13 May 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (EIP)]
Who is Killing the Hospital Labor Negotiations? |
