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| ▲ The National Health Insurance Customer Center branch counseling workers go on strike starting at 00:00 on February 1. They held a press conference at 10:30 am on January 27 in the assembly room on the 13th floor of the KCTU, urged, “The chairman of the Industrial Complex should talk to and resolve the customer center problem,” and declared a general strike struggle. | |
| Ⓒ Labor and World |
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When I saw the recruitment announcement of the Health Insurance Corporation customer center ten years ago and entered the application, I thought it would be a simple job and applied. In my life, I had never called the Health Insurance Service, so others thought it would. There are employees of public institutions in each region, but the counselor vaguely thought that it was a task that only connects the person in charge.
On the first day of work, after receiving 3 encyclopedia-thick books as educational materials for the first time, I asked,’You are learning all this?’ It was questionable, but even then, I was firmly mistaken that I was learning the rough flow.
Book 1 qualification, book 2 imposition, book 3 salary, medical examination, long-term care. All the first words I heard were unfamiliar, and I took the exam every morning during my education. If they didn’t reach the average score, they stayed alone after work to take the test. After three weeks of training, the number of students from 16 was reduced to 8.
40 minutes for lunch?
The time of 3 weeks was too short to fully learn the amount of 3 encyclopedias. Due to the lack of training time, some parts only read the title and skipped. While studying the 3rd volume, I also thought that I could pass the unknown part to the branch of the corporation.
At the end of the three-week training, they listen to the call from their seniors in the field and have a time called’Dongseok’. Among the classmates, the senior asks why the insurance premiums are so high, and asks an angry civilian for a consultation. Others say that they are all listed as dependents under a child who is a member of the health insurance company. The next step-by-step income adjustment method is added to the complainant’s question whether it is possible to pay less premiums.
Also, because my parents are in the hospital, but the hospital charges are high, explain the hospitalization and outpatient expenses. Lastly, the senior’s skill to register for a checkup even when he says he wants to receive a health checkup that he did not receive because he was busy last year. In my eyes, a newcomer, it was a realm of God. I couldn’t believe that all this was solved in one phone call.
I was assigned a team even though my worries about leaving the company continued every day, and although it was called’chicken coop’, my desk and my seat were created. Both the new recruitment announcement and the labor contract are said to be working hours from 9 to 18:00, but the team leader said that they must be logged in with the computer turned on at 8:40 in the morning.
One day, the team leader summons the team members and conveys that’there is 50 minutes for lunch today’, saying that he has good news. What are you talking about? Since the lunch break was 1 hour during the freshman training, of course, I thought that the lunch break during work was also 1 hour. When I asked a senior next to him, he said,’Recently, the lunch break has been 40 minutes.’
I wasn’t my first job at a health insurance customer service center, and I had experience working at a customer service center before, but it was the first time I had a 40-minute lunch break. It was also a public institution customer center, and I couldn’t believe that it did not observe the working hours and rest hours specified in the Labor Standards Act. We all sweared behind the scenes for unfair treatment, but we endured that we will suffer disadvantages if we report to the Ministry of Labor. A month later, the remaining motives for the eight were reduced to four.
Strange evaluation that drives conflict between workers
Even new counselors received more than 100 calls a day without exception. After the phone has ended, if you find out whether it is correct to have a consultation, the manager sends a message asking’Do you not see the customer waiting on the standby status board?’ It was a battlefield day by day. You receive an average of 120-140 calls a day, but if the number of calls to the branch office (transfer) exceeds 2%, you will receive a performance penalty. With 2% of 120 calls, only 2 calls can be connected to the branch.
There are civil complaints that must be connected to a branch office of the industrial complex when conducting health insurance counseling. For example, it is a business regulation that must be transferred to the branch manager, rather than being able to select and hand over to the branch office, such as foreclosure release, multiple payment arrears, acquisitions in urgent need, and loss.
After working one hour after work, the two are transferred to the branch office, and they are convinced that a phone call will be received, which requires a connection to the branch office for the remaining 7 hours. When I protested to the company,’It is unfair to give a deduction for processing according to the business regulations’, I received a reply that’there is no help because it is in the guidelines given when evaluating the contractor by the agency.
The customer who asks for the branch phone number must check the reason for the phone call, and even if the customer is looking for the branch person in charge of the phone call before, they must tell me, the counselor, that the connection is possible two or three times. This is because branch office phone number guidance is also deducted from the evaluation items of counselors, and the evaluation of contractors is also deducted.
It’s also a lot of time to hear the scorn of’what kind of NIS phone number is it? It’s harder to call a branch office employee than the president.’ The Health Insurance Corporation and the Customer Center have a relationship with the owner and the slave, and between the yangban and the mother.
All 16 classmates resigned and I was alone
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| ▲ A member of the union who attended the press conference to declare the general strike struggle held by the National Health Insurance Customer Center branch held at 10:30 am on December 27 in the assembly room on the 13th floor of the KCTU is crying. | |
| Ⓒ Labor and World |
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There have also been times when I’ve been faced with unfair things. Even now, several years later, I sometimes remember. Among the consulting services, there is a certificate issuance service. Since the purpose of the document is requested by various places such as financial institutions, insurance companies, public health centers, government offices, and the National Tax Service, they are trained to check personal information more thoroughly than other tasks.
One day, a member whose health insurance was suspended due to a departure from abroad called a domestic number and asked for proof documents. The customer said he entered the country before 15 days, but the entry data was not confirmed. When I refused the issuance because the voice didn’t match the subscriber’s age group and it wasn’t my own, a complaint arose due to the unkindness of the counselor. The company was frustrated, saying,’If the customer answers as asked for personal information, can I issue it as if I didn’t know?’, and treated it as an inflexible person.
On the contrary, if there was a problem after issuing the document, it was obvious that he would also blame the counselor, saying,’Why did you issue it while leaving the country?’ The company unilaterally reduced my wages, saying that unkindness is a high deduction from the contractor’s evaluation score. How does the company say that kindness is more important than the precious personal information of the people? It always emphasizes personal information protection on the surface, but it is a reality that collapses in the face of unkindness.
Sometimes during counseling, there are people who talk about their circumstances and complain with tears. Even if there is no solution right away, it would be comforting just to sympathize with it, but when the phone conversation time gets longer, the manager listens to the call in real time and urges you to hang up quickly. The National Health Insurance Service Counselor under the Ministry of Health and Welfare has to be driven out of time even when consulting on the welfare of the people, and the reality that the number of calls is pressed sometimes makes me feel self-defeating.
Even though anyone who pays insurance premiums has the right to receive counseling regardless of time, the average call time is 2 minutes and 30 seconds, and if the call time is longer, the manager is reprimanded and becomes an incompetent counselor. As the evaluation of the counselor is deducted, the counselor responds formally only to the words the customer asks.
As I endured day by day, all my motives left the company and now they are left alone. I am already 10 years old. Now, he has become a senior counselor who can give advice by attending a new counselor, but he is still receiving wages at the minimum wage level 10 years ago or now. He became a shameful senior who could not create a better working environment for his juniors.
I realized that accepting a more unjust reality wasn’t the best thing to do, and that if I didn’t change it myself, no one would do it for me. ‘I am OOO, a health insurance counselor with me.’ Like a greeting that is shouted more than a hundred times a day, I hope that the day will come when you truly become a counselor for the National Health Insurance Service and greet you with pride.