This Month at PSPD

March 2022

Let’s make a good public hospital

COVID-19 revealed how harsh the reality of public medical service is in Korea. However, some presidential candidates are not providing definite policies to expand public hospitals. “Headquarters to make a good public hospital” conducted a campaign to collect signatures on and offline asking for the expansion of public hospitals. We delivered the 30,387 signatures from the campaign until February 7 to the presidential camps of the People Power Party, Democratic Party of Korea, the People’s Party, and Justice Party to ask each candidate for a pledge on the matter.

We disagree with the insensible argument of the business sector regarding National Pension’s shareholder’s rights

Korea Enterprises Federation and Federation of Korean Industries are strongly opposing the National Pension’s active exercise of the shareholder’s rights. Their argument is that it is an “intervention to the business” and “punishment-like” actions of the shareholders. However, the purpose of the exercise of power is to heighten the value of the invested corporations and raise the long-term income for the stable retirement asset of the people. We published card-shaped news to counter the arguments from the business sector that distorts the purpose of the National Pension and opened a roundtable. 

The Information Committee of the National Assembly will be open from now

While the meetings of the National Assembly should be made available, the National Assembly Act has been allowing an “exception” that the committee should be kept secret. On January 27, the Constitutional Court decided the article in question in the constitutional appeal raised by the “National Intelligence Service watch network”. The decision was under the reasoning that the people’s watch and check are made impossible if the meetings stay secret. We welcome this reasonable decision of the Constitutional Court.

Ukraine, the War cannot be the answer

Did you see the hand picket held by the Skeleton athlete of Ukraine in the Beijing Olympics, saying “NO WAR IN UKRAINE”? That was a message to the world to broadcast the situation in Ukraine, in which the crisis of war is heightening. The Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC), with which PSPD is working together, presented a statement that urges a rapid cooldown of the militaristic tension in the Ukrainian borderline area, and to solve the situation using diplomatic and peaceful methods. 

26th Youth Public Interest Activist School 

From Jan 4 to Feb 10 of 2022, fifteen youths in their twenties who want to change the world participated in the PSPD Youth Public Interest Activist School. The Environment team decided to make people aware of the problem of the calcium chloride used for de-icing and asked the government to increase the use of eco-friendly deicing chemicals. To put this into action, they conducted online surveys, interviews with the experts, and campaigns on the street, made open inquiries to the department that oversees the deicing in the Seoul Metropolitan Government, and suggested the Ministry of Public Administration and Security check the safety of the current deicing chemicals. The Normal Family team introduced the results of the online survey and the expert interviews through an Instagram exhibit (@jeongsangfamily26) and offered a chance for people to imagine diverse forms of family, such as through genealogy with the name of the dog and friends.

Translated by Hyewon Yoon  (Volunteer of PSPD)

Korean Version>>