Increased safety awareness at workplaces
Insufficient actual prevention of CEO exemption
“Intensification of blind spots in small and medium-sized businesses”
Concern over policy retreat due to self-prevention
▲ One year following the Severe Accident Punishment Act, what has changed…
On the 25th, the KCTU construction union is holding a press conference in front of the Daehan Construction Association in Gangnam-gu, Seoul on the first anniversary of the enforcement of the Severe Accident Punishment Act. 2023.1.25 Yonhap News
“Before the accident, there were no signalmen, but now there are signalmen. People change only when they die… .”
Mr. A, a worker in his 50s whom I met on the 18th at a workplace in Gyeonggi-do, expressed regret, saying, “I was still working when a fatal accident occurred last year.” Mr. A said that following the accident, a net was put up and there were signboards warning to be careful, such as ‘danger of falling’ and ‘danger of falling rocks’. He said, “At the time of the accident, everyone suffered greatly, saying, ‘Should I stay here or should I go somewhere else?
After the implementation of the Severe Accident Punishment Act on January 27 of last year, the labor world is concerned that safety awareness is increasing, especially in large-scale workplaces, but practical accident prevention is being pushed aside as it is only focused on avoiding punishment for the CEO. The labor community emphasizes that the reason that nearly 600 workers lost their lives at work due to falls, bumps, collapses, fires or explosions even following the law was enforced is not because the law was wrong, but because it was not properly applied.
▲ Investigation status of ‘violation of the Serious Disaster Punishment Act’
Of the 34 cases that the Ministry of Employment and Labor sent to the prosecution for violation of the Serious Accident Punishment Act, 11 cases were handed over to trial. There has not been a single case where a verdict has yet been reached.
On the 25th, Attorney Young Kwon, co-CEO of Severe Accident Expert Net, criticized, “Severe Accident Punishment Act has become a’paper tiger’ as it has only signaled that it will not actually apply the law, although supplementary work must be done as precedents are accumulated.” did.
The KCTU construction union also held a press conference on the same day and criticized, “The government has never properly implemented the Severe Accident Punishment Act, but is disparaging the purpose of the legal system by assigning negative meaning to all statistics.”
When the construction union asked 7,543 workers on the 6th to 8th whether ‘safety matters at construction sites have changed in the past year’, only 21.6% answered “yes”. The union asked the same question to 7,573 workers on January 17 and 18 of last year, just before the enforcement of the law, and at that time, 41.3% responded that it was “changed,” a 19.7 percentage point increase from this year. In other words, following the enforcement of the law, tensions have decreased.
Han Chang-soo, head of the labor safety department at the Gyeonggi Headquarters of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, said, “The key elements to improve safety at the site are investment in safety facilities and recruitment of manpower, both of which require financial investment, so they cannot be changed unless the manager is in charge.” He pointed out that companies are not alert because the scope of the management manager is not specifically specified, and the person in charge of the actual money line and the subject of the investigation do not match.”
▲ Minister Lee Jung-sik briefed on the roadmap for reducing severe disasters
Minister of Employment and Labor Lee Jung-sik is briefing on the roadmap for reducing serious accidents in the briefing room of the Seoul Government Complex on November 30 last year. 2022.11.30 Yonhap News
After the law went into effect, companies changed to a joint representative system and entrusted the job of chief safety and health officer (CSO) to a newly appointed representative. It was found that Hyundai BNG Steel, which suffered consecutive deaths in September and October of last year, also switched to a joint representative system shortly following the law was enforced.
In the case of workplaces with less than 50 employees, which account for 80% of all workplaces, it is pointed out that there are many loopholes, such as the postponement of the application of the law until January next year. Last year, 60.2% (388 people) of deaths due to serious accidents occurred in workplaces with fewer than 50 employees.
Kim Byeong-hoon, head of the Labor Safety and Health Bureau at the Gyeongnam Headquarters of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, said, “The risk cannot be 100% managed from the start. If an accident occurs because there is no corrective action even though workers have informed them that it is dangerous, we must go to a responsible structure,” he said. The year is going backwards,” he said. At the same time, he emphasized, “If the law is revised, the risk of blind spots can be reduced only when it is revised not to mitigate punishment, but to actually protect workers.”
Reporters Kwak So-young, Kim Jeong-hwa, Kim Joo-yeon, and Hong In-ki