In relation to the recent recognition of adjustment disorder as a work-related disease for the industrial accident compensation claim with the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service filed by an employee who works at a big discount store, the call for the protection of emotional workers is expected to kick into high gear.

As the industrial accident compensation insurance is an ex post facto arr...angement after the occurrence of an injury or disease, it is absolutely necessary to set up the preventive measures to protect the emotional workers from the customers through the revision of related laws.

According to the National Emotional Workers' Network on October 23, the labor and civic organizations have worked out a plan to call on the parliament to pass a law to protect the emotional workers. The parliament will open again for the examination of the national budget from next month.

The National Network in which the Korean Federation of Private Service Workers Unions and Wonjin Institute for Occupational and Environmental Health are participating has persistently called on the national assembly to legislate a protection act for emotional workers but only experienced the repeated failures in the past.

In the last 4 years, 16 bills related to the protection of emotional workers were submitted to the national assembly, but only a protection regulation for emotional workers in the banking sector was stipulated. Other 11 bills were automatically scrapped, as the bills were not passed during the parliamentary session.

Previously Han Myung-sook, former lawmaker of the Minjoo Party of Korea proposed an amendment bill to the Occupational Safety and Health Act with the specification of the preventive measures by the employers to protect emotional workers from the physical and mental injuries caused by the verbal abuses and unreasonable demands of the customers.

In relation to this development, Rep. Han Jung-ae, lawmaker of the Minjoo Party of Korea put forward an amendment bill to revise the OSH Act. According to the proposed bill, preventive measures by the employers shall be provided to protect the emotional workers from the customers and when an incident of verbal violence which threatens to the worker's health occurs, the operation of business shall be temporarily halted and the employer shall support the worker to seek for the medical treatment and counseling.

Han In-yeem, policy team leader of the National Emotional Workers Network said that even though the public awareness toward the work environment for the emotional workers has been raised considerably in the past years through the struggles to protect the emotional workers, preventive measures were not yet stipulated in the law which matters a lot for the protection of emotional workers.

reported by Ku Tae-woo
edited in English by Kim Sung-jin

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