Doctors walk in front of a general hospital in Seoul on February 8. — YONHAP Photo

SEOUL — The International Labour Organization urged South Korea to resolve the ongoing dispute between the government and doctors through dialogue and refrain from violence or taking coercive measures, amid the continued standoff in the nation’s health care sector.

In a written response to The Korea Herald on Wednesday night, the United Nations agency, whose goal is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labor standards, stressed that legislation allowing workers to be called up in cases of emergency should not be worded so broadly as to call into question the fundamental principle of the elimination of forced labor, particularly when those who refuse to work face criminal penalties.

While saying it is aware of South Korea’s unrest stemming from “a complex dispute between health care workers and the government,” the organisation said that, since it “has not been formally approached by its constituents in respect of these allegations at this point,” it can only appeal to all parties involved to seek to resolve differences through “social dialogue and internationally recognised methods of dispute settlement and to de-escalate tensions by refraining from violence and coercive measures.”

The agency also noted that “ILO constituents” refers to governments and representative organisations of workers and employers, but not individuals. “Individuals are advised to raise allegations and pass on relevant information to their workers’ or employers’ organisation,” it stated.

The ILO’s response came two weeks after the Korean Intern and Resident Association, representing more than 10,000 junior doctors working at large hospitals, sent a letter to the ILO, requesting its intervention to block the South Korean government’s back-to-work order.

The doctors said that the back-to-work measure violates ILO Convention No. 29, also known as the Forced Labor Convention, which bans any entity from using forced or compulsory labor. The government refuted that its measure to order doctors to return to work fits in a clause stated by the convention that makes an exception for particular situations such as emergencies.

The government has issued an order for trainee doctors to return to work, after thousands of them walked off their duties at general hospitals nationwide last month in protest of the Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s plan to expand the medical school enrollment quota by 2,000 spots per year, saying such collective actions have driven the nation’s health care system to the brink of collapse. For not complying with its orders, the government threatened doctors with the suspension of their medical licenses for up to a year, three years in prison or a fine of 30 million won ($22,455).

Stressing its principle that forced labor should be eliminated, however, the ILO said that exceptions to forced labor standards that allow workers to be called up during emergencies should be applied in a limited manner so as not to violate the principle.

“In general terms, the ILO supervisory bodies have consistently held in the course of their regular review of the application of forced labor standards that legislation allowing the call-up of workers in cases of emergency should be worded in terms not so broad as to call into question the fundamental principle of the elimination of forced labor, notably when persons requisitioned who refuse to work are liable to criminal penalties,” it said.

The Labor Ministry issued a separate statement on Thursday, citing the ministry’s inquiry to the ILO, that “The ILO has determined KIRA is not recognized as either a labor or employer organization eligible to request ILO intervention.”

Meanwhile, the government gave a final warning to the striking junior doctors.

“The government will start to suspend their medical licenses next week for those not complying with the government’s back-to-work order,” Park Min-soo, Second Vice Minister of Health and Welfare, said at a briefing on Thursday.

Despite the fierce protest from doctors, the government on Wednesday announced the regional allocation for 2,000 new slots for students at medical schools across the country, finalising administrative procedures for the plan it has pushed for months.

There are 40 medical schools across the country — 27 such institutions outside Greater Seoul, five in Incheon and Gyeonggi Province combined and eight in Seoul. With the government completing the allocation of new seats, medical schools can now begin mapping out their admissions for 2025 — solidifying a new reality in the field of education, rather than a plan subject to renegotiation.

The Korean Medical Association — the country’s largest coalition of doctors’ groups with some 140,000 members — is reportedly mulling a full-scale strike in protest of the decision, according to reports citing health authorities. Medical professors at major universities have also said that they would submit resignations en masse next week. They stressed that until their resignations are accepted, they would minimize seeing outpatient visits and significantly reduce their working hours to no more than 52 hours a week. — The Korea Herald/ANN