[vol.10] Park, Min-na's life story_ The Injured with No Place to Rest in
WORKING WOMAN 2008. 3. 20. 11:18In response to this regressive plan, on January 17, 1997, twelve labor-related organizations including Korea Confederation of Trade Unions(KCTU), Korea Women Workers Association United(KWWAU), Federation of Korean Trade Unions(FKTU), Research Center for Labor and Health formed the Committee for Anti-Privatization of Industrial Disaster Compensation Insurance.
The committee demanded that the government withdraw the privatization plan, and that it should make more investment than before, to improve and complement the current insurance scheme. Also the committee claimed that it would take any action needed to make their demands recognized and realized.
Plans made by the Finance and Economy Board for the Efficient Practices of the Industrial Disaster Compensation Insurance Scheme
▶The Board argues following problems of the Current Insurance Scheme :
- The insurance is managed by the Labor Welfare Public Corporation and the Korea Industrial Security Public Corporation.
- Its standardized insurance rate system makes it difficult to guarantee effectiveness of the insurance, the long-term financial stability, and the prevention of job-related disasters and accidents in the workplaces.
- Without any competition among the companies, their services to the subscribers and the workers involved remain at the very low level.
- Basic Direction
- Proposals
① Reform of the system of the insurance policies : Each insurance policy should cover both the industrial disaster insurance and the excess insurance.
- Compulsory insurance : compensations should be performed based on legal standards. And the rate of the charges should basically be determined according to the standards applied differently to each type of business, but decisions regarding the discount or extra charges are to be made by companies within their limited ranges.
- Optional insurance : The compensations for injured workers who apply for the full compensation exceeding the legal standards, should also be covered, and the charges for it should be determined on a voluntary basis.
② Introduction of appropriate insurance charge
③ Employment of measures to prevent the private insurance companies from refusing to undertake sunset businesses or unstable, small-scale companies where the incidence of industrial disasters and accidents could be higher than in others.
④ Encouragement of private insurance companies to take positive activities for workers' welfare and prevention of industrial disasters. Privatization of four hospitals among the six specializing in industrial-disaster- related problems, where those patients account for under 30 % of the total patients of each hospital.
⑤ Employment of measures to minimize the number of non-subscribers : The Labour Welfare Public Corporation should take the responsibilities for supervising nonsubscriber companies and for compensating on their behalf. Private insurance companies earned profits in proportion to the total revenue of each company.
The compulsory insurance policy should be maintained. Competition should be encouraged by allowing private insurance companies to deal with the industrial disaster compensation insurances, and it also followed by complementary measures to ease the problems brought about by the competition itself.
▶ Needed Measures
- Decisions regarding insurance charges, extra charges, and discounts should be permitted by the Finance and Economy Board.
- Private insurance companies should be allowed to assess their losses.
Potential Problems of the Privatization of the Industrial Disaster Insurance Scheme
- Compensations for industrial disaster would become hard to get because of the increasing disputes in recognizing an accident as 'industrial' or 'occupational'.
- The quality of the insurance service as a part of social welfare program would deteriorate.
Since the private insurance companies search for as much interest as possible, it is unlikely that companies provide the workers involved with quality services for medical treatment, financial compensation, and rehabilitation enough to return to work.
- Medium-scale or small-scale companies where the incidence of industrial disaster is higher than in big companies would suffer too much from the increased insurance charges they have to pay.
Since the rate of the insurance charges are determined by the incidence rate, and also since this charging system would be precipitated into the privatization, it is expected that medium-scale and small-scale enterprises would tend to either avoid subscribing to the insurance policies or fire workers who are more vulnerable to disasters in the workplaces, all of which do not to help reduce the industrial disasters at all.
- Workers in small-scale businesses, especially in businesses which employ less than five workers, would have little possibility to get compensation.
- The medical treatment services for patients would not be fully provided.
Specialists agree on the gruesome possibility that, when the insurance business are privatized, the services for patients, such as Pneumoconiosis patients who need long-term medical treatment, would be dealt with for shorter periods of treatment covered by the insurance than they are supposed to be.
Especially, mining companies where the incidence of the job-related disasters is very high would be refused subscribing to insurance policies, which would also lead to increasing legal disputes.
The disputes and lawsuits raised by workers involved in industrial disasters have been increasing even under the current system where the Labour Welfare Public Corporation is in charge. So, it is projected that, if the whole insurance business is privatized, conflicts between private companies and workers would be much more rapidly increasing, and that workers would spend much more time, with much less success, to get the compensation than before.