Reporters in charge of the Ministry of Employment and Labor receive a death accident notification text message that begins with <Web sent> almost every day.
This is a text message sent in the event of a fatal accident at a site subject to the Severe Accident Punishment Act.
Last year, the number of people who died at all industrial sites slightly decreased to 644, but the number of people who died at workplaces subject to the Severe Disaster Prevention Act increased by 8 to 256, compared to before the law was enforced.
There is another 'changed landscape' that numbers do not speak of.
A construction company that gives you a reward if you use the 'right to suspend work'... Atmosphere to strengthen 'safety education'
It is an encouraging atmosphere that the use of the right to suspend work is expanding, centered on prime contractors and large construction sites.
The 'right to stop work', which allows workers to stop work at any time in case of danger, has been difficult to use even if there are regulations based on the law.
It is still limited to a small number of construction companies, but it is definitely a positive change that the use of 'right to suspend work' is encouraged.
In fact, at a construction site of a large corporation that the reporter visited, prizes were given to the person who used the most right to suspend work and an awards ceremony was held.
It is because of the judgment that 'damage' caused by a brief pause is better than irreversible loss of life.
Jeon Jae-hee, head of the education and propaganda department of the construction union, said, “It is of great significance that the atmosphere that guarantees the right to suspend work is spreading around the prime contractor, even at the risk of an extension of the work period and financial loss through the use of the right to suspend work.”
A small construction site without a 'fall prevention net'... still a lot
Enlarge Image
Of course , it
is also true that the smaller the scale of construction, the farther away it is from the outskirts of the city
.
Because the Severe Disaster Act applies only to businesses with 50 people or more than 5 billion won, accidents and deaths that are not even counted properly continue to occur in places with small construction scale.
There are still many places where even basic fall prevention nets are not installed in these places, resulting in large-scale casualties.
In the case of Mr. A, a 55-year-old man who fell at the construction site of the Administrative Complex Cultural Center in Wonju City, Gangwon Province in September last year, six neck bones were fractured and he is still unconscious, but was not counted as a 'serious disaster' because he was not dead.
It is a reality that there is still a lack of basic safety footings, except for the sites of large corporations, which are often classified as first-tier companies.
Construction sites where skills are important have a high proportion of workers in their late 50s and early 60s, but union officials say that there is a clear trend of avoiding employment of senior citizens in their 60s or older for the reason of avoiding the Severe Accident Act.
'Self-prevention' reinforcement signal... Severe Disaster Law Responsible Punishment Slow
Now, what kind of change is the movement to try to fix the Severe Disaster Punishment Act, which is just one year old, bringing about?
The late Kim Shin-young, who died in the Hwail Chemical explosion in September last year, says Jeong Kyung-hee, an occupational and environmental medicine specialist who works on the accident countermeasures committee.
"The accident occurred on September 30th, and the final result of the NFS autopsy came out in mid-November, but there is still no result on whether or not a serious accident was violated. I have investigated the cause so many times, but I postponed the judgment on the violation of the Serious Accident Act. I
have
strong doubts that the government's signal to 'relax punishment and regulations and strengthen prevention' is the background behind the Ministry of Employment and Labor's decision to prosecute.
" There are 11 cases that have been prosecuted afterward, and there is no case that has been recognized as guilty yet.
Enlarge Image
A place where a family member left due to an industrial accident
While preparing for the 1-year planning report of the Severe Accident Punishment Act, I promised to include interviews with bereaved families who lost their families in industrial accidents.
Since I often saw the bereaved family holding microphones on the news right after a major accident, I thought it would be easy to recruit them, but I was wrong.
The deaths of fathers, husbands, daughters and sons were not 'something' that could be filled over time.
A mother who lost her daughter at the SPL Bread Factory hadn't been able to get into her daughter's room yet as months went by.
The bereaved families were grappling with feelings of indebtedness, sadness and longing that came after the incident was out of media attention.
"I really want to ask why there are guilty people but no punishment, and what the government thinks of mitigating such an important law."
These are the words of Kwon Geum-hee, wife of the late Dong-woo Lee of Dongkuk Steel.