President of the National Health Insurance Service Goes on a Hunger Strike in Response to Conflicts Between Labor Unions

[경향신문]

Kim Yong-ik, president of the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) engages in a hunger strike in the lobby of the NHIS building in Wonju, Gangwon-do on June 14. Courtesy of the National Health Insurance Service

Kim Yong-ik, president of the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) launched a hunger strike calling for workers to resolve conflicts through dialogue after non-regular workers at the NHIS Customer Services Center started an indefinite strike demanding the Service to directly hire the workers. Indeed, it is very unusual for the head of a public agency to engage in a hunger strike against a labor union.

Kim argued that he had no choice but to go on a hunger strike because the government policy to have public agencies directly hire all its workers triggered conflicts between labor unions, but he came under attack for making a bad move just to evade responsibility. As the director of the Institute for Democracy, Kim was President Moon Jae-in’s aid who established the president’s campaign pledges in the last presidential election.

On June 14, Kim released a statement and said, “The Customer Services Union should end the strike and the National Health Insurance Service Union should take part in the council for discussions on outsourced customer service tasks.” He also announced, “I will go on a hunger strike and wait until the two unions reach such decisions.” He further explained, “I am well aware of the various criticism on the unprecedented hunger strike by the NHIS president against the unions,” and added, “Due to my limited ability, I could not find any other way. I apologize to the people.”

The National Health Insurance Service Customer Services chapter of the Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union, an arm of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, launched an indefinite strike on June 10 demanding that the Service directly hire the workers. The Customer Services Union had previously gone on strike for 24 days in February. The task discussion council is where the parties were to discuss the issue of direct employment, but the union of regular employees at the Service opposed the direct employment of customer services workers and refused to take part in the council, so the Customer Services Union has not been able to take part either.

Kim was a member of the parliamentary Health and Welfare Committee as lawmaker of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy (currently, the Democratic Party of Korea) who earned his parliamentary seat through proportional representation in the 19th National Assembly, and he also served as the director of the Institute for Democracy, the Democratic Party’s think-tank. In the last presidential election, he served as a co-director of the Democratic Party’s policy headquarters and was involved in establishing the president’s pledge in health and welfare including Moon Jae-in Care. He was inaugurated as the president of the National Health Insurance Service in January 2018. Since he has a good understanding of the government’s policies, he was expected to smoothly implement the plans to have public agencies directly hire its non-regular workforce, which was President Moon’s key labor pledge. However, discussions on this issue at the National Health Insurance Service have been going in circles.

It is true that discussions on changing the status of non-regular workers to regular workers have come to a halt due to the opposition of the regular workers’ union at NHIS. The current leaders of the regular workers’ union were elected after they pledged to oppose the NHIS directly hiring non-regular workers as regular workers. The government was also responsible for the latest problem. The government announced that it would turn non-regular workers in the public sector to regular workers in three stages according to the nature of employment. Unlike the first two stages, where the government actively promoted the transition of the workers’ status, in the third stage, which involved outsourced private firms, the government gave individual agencies the autonomy to make their own decisions. In other words, the government let the agencies handle the matter. The National Health Insurance Service Customer Services Center, where about 1,600 people work, fell into this category.

The council will hold its third meeting to discuss the issue of direct employment on June 18. Kim played a strong card with the hunger strike, but some people criticize him for trying to evade responsibility. They raised concerns that he was simply highlighting the conflict between the unions rather than resolving the problem.

Kim Jong-jin, senior research fellow at the Korea Labor and Society Institute said, “Kim’s hunger strike can put a negative frame on the union making it look like their demands are bad.” He further explained, “There are agencies that successfully resolved the problem, like the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service and the National Pension Service, but the Health Insurance Service neglected the issue in the past. A hunger strike is only a political show; it is not the solution.” Jung Heung-jun, a professor at the Seoul National University of Science and Technology said, “The chief who has the authority to make personnel decisions going on a hunger strike and publicly announcing his demands from the union could be seen as pressuring the union.”

The Customer Services Union said, “President Kim failed to properly present the issues and solutions to the problem, and added, “The nature of the problem is not a battle between the unions over who gets a bigger piece of the pie. It is the deteriorating labor conditions of customer services workers, which occurred during the sixteen years when customer services was commissioned to the private sector. We ask Kim to cease the hunger strike and approach the table.”