The Two Major Trade Unions: "Public Institutions Must Strengthen Publicness and Prohibit Privatization"

Announcement of General Election Demands to Strengthen Publicness of Public Institutions

The Joint Countermeasures Committee of the Two Major Labor Unions in the Public Sector held a press conference on the 20th in front of the National Assembly in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, proposing tasks to strengthen the public nature of public institutions and promote democratic management.

[Photo by Gonggong Unsu Nojo]

They demanded the political circles to "strengthen the independence and democracy of the Public Institution Management Committee by enhancing the participation of civil society and limiting the number of government members to less than one-third."

They added, "To improve the malpractice of the government unilaterally pushing for the sale of public institution assets and functional adjustments, the National Assembly's consent procedure should be legally stipulated, and the management evaluation system should also be comprehensively improved."

Along with this, they proposed methods to prohibit privatization. They stated, "A basic law prohibiting privatization should be enacted, and policies to strengthen the public nature of services such as medical care, pensions, and health insurance should be promoted," adding, "The state must take responsibility for deficits incurred by public institutions in the process of providing essential public services."

Finally, they argued, "To prevent government guidelines related to wages and labor conditions from being unilaterally decided, a '(tentative name) Public Institution Wage and Working Conditions Decision Committee' and a labor-government negotiation body should be institutionalized by law," and "The Yoon Seok-yeol administration's public institution innovation guidelines should be abolished, the policy forcing unilateral reform of the wage system based on job performance bonuses should be stopped, and decisions should be made through democratic labor-government negotiations."

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