"Amend the School Meals Act"... Gyeongnam Headquarters Launches 1 Million Signature Campaign

The Gyeongnam Headquarters for the 1 Million Petition Campaign to Amend the School Meals Act has been established.

On September 25, the "Free School Meals SOS! Safe Labor, Happy Meals 1 Million Petition Gyeongnam Campaign Headquarters" held a press conference in the briefing room of the Gyeongnam Office of Education to announce the launch of the headquarters.

The headquarters is comprised of 18 organizations, including the Gyeongnam branch of the National School Irregular Workers' Union, the office of Assemblywoman Jeong Hyekyung, the Progressive Party, the Justice Party, the Gyeongnam Progressive Alliance, the Gyeongnam Education Hope Parents' Association, the Gyeongnam Women's Solidarity, the Gyeongnam Youth Union, the Forum for Education for All, the Gyeongnam branch of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the People and Education Forum, the Busan-Gyeongnam Federation of the Korean Peasants League, and the Gyeongnam branch of the Korean Women's Trade Union.

The 'Free School Meals SOS! Safe Labor, Happy Meals 1 Million Petition Gyeongnam Campaign Headquarters' is being established, and a press conference announcing the 1 million petition campaign is underway. Photo by Lee Seryoung

They explained, "We have established this headquarters to ensure healthy, eco-friendly free school meals for children and to protect the safety and lives of school meal workers."

They went on to say, "Currently, school cafeterias are turning into places of death, chronic illness, and despair," adding, "We must no longer allow the high-risk, high-intensity, and low-wage crisis in school cafeterias to be treated as a problem of individual schools."

They also announced plans to conduct the "1 Million Petition Campaign for Safe Labor and Happy Meals" nationwide until November 30, aiming to collect 1 million signatures across the country, including 100,000 from Gyeongnam.

Additionally, they stated that on October 18, they will hold a talk concert to promote the purpose of the petition campaign and explain the intent behind the proposed amendment to the School Meals Act.

The headquarters urged, "Through the amendment of the School Meals Act, the safety and health of school meal workers must be guaranteed by law and system, and the outsourcing of school meals, which undermines eco-friendly free meals, must be stopped."

They also called for the government to establish comprehensive measures to eliminate occupational diseases such as lung cancer among school cafeteria workers, to provide solutions for unpaid work during school vacations, and to set up school meal committees.

Currently, four amendments to the School Meals Act have been proposed, including one sponsored by Progressive Party Assemblywoman Jeong Hyekyung. The Gyeongnam headquarters plans to focus on the amendment proposed by Assemblywoman Jeong and to urge the government to take action.

The main points of the amendment proposed by Assemblywoman Jeong include defining the protection of school meal workers' health as a responsibility of the state and local governments, establishing and strengthening the functions of school meal committees, guaranteeing the participation of parents and school meal worker representatives on the committees, and strengthening industrial safety responsibilities related to the working environment.