30,000 unionized medical workers to launch general strike on Thursday

The Korean Health and Medical Workers Union (KHMU) will launch a general strike on Thursday, as previously announced.

Chaos appears inevitable as nearly 30,000 union members from 61 medical institutions are expected to participate in the strike, on top of the prolonging healthcare disruptions caused by the doctor-government conflict.

On Saturday, the union said that 29,705 members of 61 workplaces nationwide voted on the strike action, with a turnout of 81.66 percent and 91.11 percent voting in favor. Voting took place from last Monday to Friday.

The union said that if the employers reject its members’ demands, each member union will hold a rally on Wednesday evening and launch a simultaneous strike from 7 a.m. on Thursday. It added that all unionized workers, except for essential personnel in the emergency room, intensive care unit, delivery room, and neonatal unit, will participate in the strike.

KHMU called for employers to increase wages by 6.4 percent from this year and made various other demands such as prompt normalization of medical treatment, prohibition of passing on responsibility for collective actions of doctors, eradication of illegal medical treatment, and clarification of the scope of work, increase in workforce, conducting pilot project for a four-day workweek, provision of a safe working environment, resolution of indirect employment issues, social solidarity, securing a standard livelihood and guaranteeing a living wage.

It demanded that the government support closing the gap in essential, critical, and emergency medical care due to doctors' refusal to treat patients, revive public, essential, and regional medical care, resolve manpower issues, establish a system of local and national responsibility for care and health care, stop the policy of medical commercialization, establish a national disaster emergency medical system, support work-family balance, support a pilot project for a four-day workweek in the health care industry, ratify the ILO conventions, institutionalize collective bargaining and establish basic labor rights.

The healthcare union urged employers to accept the demands, saying that its members have been protecting the site during the management difficulties caused by the government-doctor dispute over the past seven months.

“Do not pass on the responsibility for the management crisis caused by the medical gap due to doctors' refusal to treat patients to healthcare workers anymore,” the union said. “Healthcare workers have been protecting the lives and safety of patients despite the disadvantages of being forced to take annual leave, unpaid leave, and transfers to other departments under the excuse of management difficulties.”

It also called on the government and employers to resolve their demands.

“Employers should actively work to accommodate the union's demands. The government must come up with policy, institutional, and financial solutions to resolve the stalled labor negotiations so that the right healthcare reform that will save public, essential, and regional healthcare and normalize the distorted healthcare system can be realized,” the union said.

It continued, “More than six months have passed since the mass resignation of trainee doctors. It is time for the government and employers to answer the urgent demands of dedicated healthcare workers to fill the healthcare gap,” the union said. “We will do our best to reach an amicable settlement of the collective bargaining negotiations. We call on the government and employers to come up with forward-looking solutions.”