Ministry of the Interior and Safety Holds 'Policy Consultation Body' Meeting with Public Officials' Union... Discusses 18 System Improvements

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced on the 13th that it held the first meeting of the '2021 Policy Consultative Body with Public Officials' Unions,' involving the three major public officials' unions: Gongnocho, Jeongongno, and Tonghapno.

The policy consultative body is a forum where the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the unions jointly discuss reasonable improvements regarding systems under the ministry's jurisdiction, such as personnel and service matters. Starting with this meeting, detailed solutions to the agenda items requested by the public officials' unions will be discussed through several working-level meetings, with the final agreement to be confirmed at the second meeting in December.

The policy consultative body was established in July 2018 with the three major public officials' unions to actively communicate with the unions at the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, which oversees local government officials, after Jeongongno obtained legal union status in March 2018. Since then, it has been regularly operated (twice a year) up to the present. Since 2018, through the operation of the policy consultative body, efforts have been made to rationally improve public service systems by reducing unnecessary workloads for public officials and providing various welfare benefits.

The consultative body adjusted the regular training hours for public officials related to disasters such as COVID-19 from the previous 80 hours to 60 hours, and extended the period for using substitute leave from within one week to within six weeks. To reduce the burden of evaluating the rapid execution of local government budgets, the number of evaluations was reduced from three to two times, and mandatory payment of 80% of salary during training for newly appointed candidates was also introduced.

This year, the unions proposed 18 agenda items reflecting voices from the public service field, including measures to protect emotional labor workers (civil complaint handlers) in the public sector, restrictions on the excessive issuance of emergency duty orders, improvement of working conditions for severely disabled public officials, reform of the responsible operating agency system, and carrying over special leave (7 days) due to marriage to after COVID-19, which will be discussed together.

Park Seong-ho, Director of the Local Autonomy and Decentralization Office, said, “To ensure the policy consultative body can play a practical role, we will strengthen the consultation function by involving department head-level attendance from the preliminary agenda consultation stage, and faithfully implement the matters agreed upon in the policy consultative body. We will actively strive to strengthen and revitalize the policy consultative body.” He added, “We ask the public officials' unions to perform their role as a balanced party that promotes both the welfare of public officials and the national interest, thereby creating a public service society trusted by the people.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.