Assembly sanitation workers' long battle pays off
Kim Young-sook, head of the union for National Assembly sanitation workers, holds an employee pass during a New Year’s ceremony at the Assembly, Jan. 2. / Yonhap
By Kim Hyo-jin
“I have no worries at all now. I’m even unaware of the passage of time while working,” Kim Young-sook, head of the union for sanitation workers at the National Assembly said Wednesday, gazing at an employee pass hung around her neck proudly.
A total of 203 former contract sanitation workers at the Assembly have recently been directly hired by it.
Lawmakers passed a bill to secure a budget for the direct employment of irregular sanitation workers last month in line with a pledge from Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-kyun.
Kim participated in the Assembly’s New Year ceremony, Jan. 2, along with fellow workers as regular employees. She recalled the moment when Assembly Secretary-General Woo Yoon-keun bowed to them, saying, “Sorry, having you as our family was so late.”
“It made me feel like he has already done everything we’d ever wanted,” Kim said.
The move came six years since Kim, then vice union head, started fighting for direct employment in 2011. Park Hee-tae, then Assembly speaker, pledged to hire the workers but the issue was neglected while the ruling party remained skeptical of it, concerned about a possible ripple effect on non-regular workers at other public bodies.
In the past, the sanitation workers have been abused by contractors -service companies that played the role of management - in various aspects. They forced them to do extra work or arbitrarily switched their tasks, disregarding labor regulations.
As the companies contract with the Assembly for two to three years’ time, they easily shirked accountability while extorting the workers, Kim said.
“I was more of a slave back then,” she said. “I had to follow whatever they ordered. I sometime spent sleepless nights, feeling anger and frustration.”
After raising questions about poor working conditions, Kim was dispatched to one of the hardest sections of the Assembly building. Her arthritis got to the stage where she could barely move her legs but the contractor ignored the situation and made her stay there for three years.
“I was naive. I believed the National Assembly would be a place where all people would be treated fairly under the Assemblymen’s watch. But it was not the case,” she said.
Kim stepped up seeking ways to protect workers’ rights. She established the union for sanitation workers in 2011. While serving as the union head since 2014, she has appealed to lawmakers to hire the workers directly.
Chung, who has long witnessed their efforts, pledged to help them as soon as he assumed the speaker post in June. An employment taskforce of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea made a push to pass a bill for the relevant budget. Amid rising public attention on unfair employment, the bill was passed with even support from the ruling party in December.
“I learned we can be heard only when we make our voice loud,” Kim said. “I didn’t know it was such a precious feeling to be respected before. It made me proud and more responsible in my work.”