1600 Employees at NHIS Customer Center to Be Converted to Regular Positions Within Affiliated Institutions

"Indiscriminate Regularization of Public Institutions... Opinions on Violating Social Fairness"

In front of the National Health Insurance Service in Wonju, Gangwon Province, a 'Rally Urging Direct Employment of Non-Regular Workers' was held last July. [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Chunhee Lee] Approximately 1,600 customer service representatives at the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) Customer Center will be converted to regular employees. The issue of directly employing the representatives, which had continued for about eight months, has been resolved through the ‘affiliated institution regular employment conversion’ method, an intermediate step between the subsidiary regular employment conversion commonly used for converting existing non-regular workers and direct employment by the main institution.

According to NHIS on the 21st, at the office discussion council held that day, it was decided to convert the current outsourced regular employees of the customer center into regular employees by establishing a separate affiliated institution within the NHIS. The office discussion council includes labor and management of NHIS, the NHIS Customer Center branch of the Public Transport Union under the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), which has been advocating for direct employment of NHIS regular employees, and external experts, who have continued discussions related to improving the treatment of customer center staff.

Since February, NHIS Customer Center employees have repeatedly gone on strike demanding direct regular employment by NHIS. During the June strike, NHIS Chairman Yong-ik Kim even went on a hunger strike to mediate the conflict, and in July, large-scale protests involving other KCTU union members were held near the headquarters in Wonju, Gangwon Province, among other significant events.

The adopted affiliated institution conversion method differs significantly from the direct employment through subsidiary establishment that many institutions have chosen since the Moon Jae-in administration declared the ‘regularization of non-regular workers in the public sector’ in 2017. The affiliated institution is a corporation like NHIS, where the organizational structure, budget, and major business plans are controlled by the NHIS board of directors, but internal operations such as personnel and performance management are independently managed under the responsibility of the head of the affiliated institution. Wages and collective agreements are negotiated directly between the branch and NHIS, and affiliated institution employees must undergo a separate recruitment process to transfer to NHIS. Currently, NHIS operates two affiliated institutions: Ilsan Hospital and Seoul Nursing Home. This can be seen as a middle ground between the direct employment demanded by the customer center branch and the existing subsidiary regular employment conversion method.

However, it is still uncertain whether the labor-labor conflicts that previously arose will completely subside through this. This is because groups such as the Fair Value Solidarity, composed of MZ generation (Millennials + Generation Z) employees within NHIS, are strongly opposing it, citing ‘violation of fairness.’

Following reports that the resolution through the establishment of an affiliated institution was likely, a post titled “Opposition to direct employment of call center and establishment of affiliated institution” was uploaded on the Blue House National Petition Board, claiming that “direct employment and affiliated institution formation of NHIS customer center violates social fairness.” The petitioner stated, “I believe improvements are necessary regarding the poor working conditions and treatment claimed by the NHIS customer center,” but emphasized, “If a large number of people become public institution regular employees indiscriminately once again, many citizens will be angered and hurt.”

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