Government, nurses must reach compromise

The Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union under the combative Confederation of Korean Trade Unions (KCTU) has declared to strike for two days starting Thursday — and if its demands are not met, its members will continue the strike indefinitely. The union says it will allow essential staffers to work at emergency rooms, operating rooms, and ICUs, but chaos is unavoidable for hospitals if unionized members join the strike. We urge the government and the union to talk with one another.

The union demands better treatment for nurses, nursing assistants and medical technicians, including lesser labor intensity, and more assistance to public medical institutions than before. The union claims that the government didn’t keep the promise it made in September 2021. At the time, the liberal Moon Jae-in administration accepted the union’s demand five hours before it entered a strike. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo under the conservative Yoon Suk Yeol administration last year promised to implement the deal the previous administration struck with the union.

The latest strike has been led by nurses who take up 60 percent of union members. Anyone would agree with the high labor intensity for nurses. While working environments improved in private companies and the public sector, no noticeable change was made in the medical community. The stark reality of nurses having to take care of even more patients even spiked a conflict among patients — and among nurses — which became a major cause for nurses to leave their hospital. As a result, an increasing number of nurses move to foreign countries where their pay and working environment is better than in Korea. Last year, 1,816 Koreans applied for the National Council Licensing Examination for Registered Nurse (NCLEX-RN) in the U.S., doubling the number in 2019.

Nurses’ discontent reached a peak when President Yoon Suk Yeol vetoed a nursing bill unilaterally passed by the Democratic Party in May. The act might have clashed with the existing Medical Service Act. And yet, nurses attacked the president for breaking the promise he made during his campaign. The government again promised to fix the proper number of patients per nurse, but hasn’t done so yet.

The demands from the union require a big cost, including an apparent hike in health insurance premiums and increase in government expenditure. The union is certainly aware of the budgetary limit. We hope both sides engage in a sincere dialogue to find a breakthrough. But if the government surrenders to the umbrella union’s strategy of exploiting nurses’ disgruntlement for its own political gains, that’s a misfortune for all. A strike taking patients hostage cannot earn sympathy from citizens.