By Park Chung-a
Staff Reporter
About 2,300 unionized workers at Yonsei Severance Hospital in Seoul went on strike on Tuesday, causing a partial disruption of medical services.
Hospital management said it had reduced the number of outpatient appointments by 50 percent and decided to reduce inpatient capacity to 70 percent of the usual number. Also, it put off medical treatments for more than half of its outpatients to a later date.
Unionized workers at three other hospitals _ Yongdong Severance Hospital, Yongin Severance Hospital and Gwangju Severance Mental Health Hospital _ all umbrella organizations of Yonsei, also walked off their jobs at 6 a.m.
The union said it launched the walkout after seeing no progress in labor-management negotiations regarding wage hikes and non-regular workers.
However, it said that 2,000 out of its 4,000 members would continue to work in maternity wards, emergency rooms and intensive care units in order to minimize the disruption of services.
The union has been demanding a 4 percent rise in basic salary, selected management rights over personnel shakeups, and turning 200 of the hospitals’ non-regular workers into regular positions immediately.
The union and management have failed to narrow down their differences despite their yearlong negotiations.
The union criticized management saying that it is just being stubborn in its position, although the hospital’s profits increased by 120 billion won compared to the previous year.
``Out of a total 4,500 workers, more than 800 are non-regular workers. Also, over 200 out of the 800 have worked for more than one year,’’ said Huh Won-bong, vice-chairman of the union. ``I think it’s right to turn their status into regular workers in order to forge employment security rather than just raise salaries as a temporary policy.’’
The management said that although it can improve working conditions for workers, it cannot accept the union’s participation in management nor change non-regular workers’ status.
``We have suggested a 3 percent hike in salaries that will be paid this year. We will also take steps to improve the working conditions of non-regular workers,’’ said Choi Kyung-deuk, a spokesman for the hospital.
In a three-day vote to decide whether or not to go on strike from July 2 to 4, 85.3 percent of the unionized workers voted in favor of the strike.