Eunhaeng Intersection in Seoul's Nowon district, around 6 p.m. on Sunday, the 23rd. People stopped in front of an unfamiliar blue tent, murmuring. Kim Sung-hwan, Minister of Climate, Energy and Environment, sat on a folding chair consulting with one resident about a local complaint while others waited their turn. In heat topping 30 degrees Celsius, Kim sweated profusely as he carefully read the documents handed over by residents and answered their questions.
When this reporter greeted him, Kim confided, "When there is no Cabinet meeting or official schedule, I come out to the field every Sunday to hear residents' views and reflect them in policy." He said residents bring not only everyday complaints but also many proposals on climate policy. "Minister, it would be good if you also met business leaders often and listened to their views on energy issues such as nuclear power," this reporter ventured. Kim replied, "I meet them often. I will continue to do so." Perhaps these "conversations with business leaders" have played a large part in the subtle shift in Kim's position — once an opponent of nuclear power — toward building new reactors in connection with the three mega projects.
Leaving the tent and looking back, Kim was fully absorbed in listening to another resident's views. His "open attitude" — listening to voices from the field, whether from residents or business leaders, and trying to correct flawed policy — deserved applause. It overlapped in my mind with the armchair idea of a certain lawmaker who proposed solving young people's housing problems by converting scrapped buses into homes. I hope he will meet business leaders regularly, rather than staging a show, and listen more to their views on energy infrastructure such as electricity and water supply.
The official who most needs to meet business leaders right now may in fact be Kim Young-hoon, Minister of Employment and Labor. Because the Yellow Envelope Act (the revised Trade Union Act) was misbuttoned from the start, industrial sites are suffering everywhere — friction and strikes between large companies and unions, conflicts between prime-contractor and subcontractor unions, and the spread of demands for percentage-based performance pay. President Lee Jae-myung ordered that the scope of labor disputes be spelled out in law, but there has been no word since. An executive in charge of labor affairs at one large company grumbled, "It is hard to catch even a glimpse of the labor minister's face." Would it be asking too much to hope that the labor minister breaks out of his ideological framework and seeks answers in the field?
