Who poured cold water on President Moon, the Democratic Party

▲ At a plenary session held at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul on the afternoon of the 8th, a bill on the punishment of serious disasters is being passed.
Ⓒ Joint coverage photo	See related photos

The’Severe Accident Penalty Act’ (Severe Accident Act) passed the plenary session of the National Assembly on the 8th. This bill is far back from the government bill that was criticized by the labor world, including the bill of Justice Party lawmaker Kang Eun-mi, the original bill containing the petition for the enactment of the Severe Accident Business Penalty Act.

The level of punishment was lowered (lower limit of 3 years → 1 year), and workplaces with less than 5 employees were excluded. Aside from the provisions for punishing public officials who are the heads of institutions or superiors for neglect of their duties at the workplace that caused the serious disaster, there was also a skirmish that did not delete the punishment regulations for public officials in the general rules. For businesses with fewer than 50 employees, a three-year postponement clause was imposed, which literally became a rag.

How did the serious disaster law become rags?

It is a scene that seems to have been seen a lot. This was the case with the minimum wage legislation, which became rags when the minimum wage was realized in order to eliminate low wages, but then surrendered to the demands of companies and expanded the scope of the coverage. In the public sector, at least as a model employer, the policy to turn non-regular workers into regular workers in the public sector promoted the conflict between regular workers and non-regular workers by encouraging the conflict between regular and non-regular workers after saying that they would not discriminate against non-regular workers for essential tasks.

It is natural to collect stakeholder opinions in the process of promoting policies and legislation. However, it is incompetent to undermine the nature of policies and laws without principles. The Severe Disaster Act, which passed the National Assembly this time, is a pledge made by President Moon Jae-in in his 20s presidential election, advocating a labor-respecting society. The principles in the process of enacting laws and promoting policies should have been focused on’life’ and’safety’, which prevents worker deaths and lowers the rate of industrial accidents, rather than corporate costs.

Again, the ruling party accepted the opinion of an economic group to lower the level of punishment, saying that corporate activities will be reduced. In addition, with the opinion of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, which claimed the exclusion of projects with fewer than five employees, saying that the safety management capabilities of small business sites are weak, a’alternative’ bill was made and presented to the plenary session in the name of the judicial committee chairman Yoon Ho-jung.

▲ Even on the 29th fasting… Kim Yong-gyun’s mother shed tears After the legislation on the punishment of serious disasters, etc., was passed, the late Kim Yong-gyun’s mother, Kim Mi-sook, the chairman of the Kim Yong-gyun Foundation, shed tears at the dismantling ceremony of the headquarters of the Severe Disaster Punishment Act in front of the main building of the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul. On the left is Lee Yong-gwan, the father of late PD Lee Han-bit.
Ⓒ Joint coverage photo	See related photos

It was decided not to submit to the plenary session the “Petition for the Enactment of the Severe Accident Corporate Punishment Act for a Safe Workplace and Society,” containing the wishes of 100,000 people, including Kim Mi-sook, the mother of the late Kim Yong-gyun, who was the trigger for the enactment of the Severe Accident Act. This is because the purpose of the petition by Mr. Kim and others has been achieved in the’alternative’ law. Even though the petitioners say no, “Please listen to our opinions.” At the moment when the Major Disaster Act was passed at the plenary session, Misuk Kim, one of the 100,000 citizens who petitioned for the enactment of the law, shed tears of despair.

If a worker dies for violating safety measures, the employer is subject to imprisonment for up to 7 years or a fine of up to 100 million won in accordance with the current Occupational Safety and Health Act. According to a study by Choi Jeong-hak, a professor of law at Korea National Open University, among individuals (11,1547 cases) and corporations (5571 cases) prosecuted for violations of the Sanan Law from 2007 to 2017, 613 cases for individuals and 265 cases for corporations, on average, were less than 5%. No way. Among them, more than 60 sentences were sentenced to imprisonment, and the average sentence was only 10.9 months. 137 cases were suspended and 478 cases were fined. Individual fines averaged 4.21 million won and corporate fines averaged 4.48 million won. Even this, the responsibility was handed over to middle managers and front-line workers, not to the owners or managers.

Since there was no possibility for companies to systematically conduct thorough safety management with this loose sanitation law, the purpose of the severe accident corporate punishment law was to treat serious accidents as’corporate crimes’ to prevent industrial accidents. It was intended to make the cost of a person’s death overwhelming the cost of investment for prevention. This is why the imprisonment for business owners and managers who caused serious accidents by violating the obligation to prevent hazards and dangers was greatly raised to imprisonment for at least three years. At least that’s the point in which companies and managers of management will escape the attitude of dismissing safety as a cost and begin to prevent industrial accidents.

However, under the passed severe disaster law, the lower limit set for more than three years was lowered to imprisonment for more than one year. The power of the economic groups and the people was fiercely opposed by saying,’It is too harsh against the offenders’, and the Democratic Party accepted it too easily. Driving a car by driving under the influence of alcohol or under the’Private Diet Act’, which sets the duty to drive in a child protection zone with care to the safety of children, and if a child is killed for violating this, in accordance with the Specific Crime Aggravated Penalty Act. In the case of death of a person, the lower limit is lowered to one year for violations of the obligation to prevent serious accidents of the same nature, compared to the fact that the lower limit is not imposed due to delinquent imprisonment for more than 3 years for the death of a person under the Specific Crime Weighted Penalty Act. Things are difficult to understand.

Cold water over the Moon Jae-in administration’s policy to reduce industrial accident deaths

▲ In addition, leaders such as Democratic Party President Lee Nak-yeon and Park Tae-yeon Kim are watching President Moon Jae-in’s 2021 New Year’s remarks broadcast live at the Yeouido National Assembly in Seoul on the morning of the 11th.
Ⓒ Joint coverage photo	See related photos

An even bigger problem is that in the severe accident law penalties passed this time, workplaces with fewer than 5 employees were excluded at all, and the application was suspended for 3 years to workplaces with fewer than 50 employees. Workplaces with fewer than 50 employees, including fewer than 5, account for 98.8.% of the total, and 76.6% of all industrial accidents occur there. Unless the law is amended, workplaces with fewer than five employees remain as a’wide blind spot’ to prevent serious accidents. According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor’s’data on the current status of deaths in industrial accidents by workplace size’, the number of industrial accident deaths at workplaces with fewer than 5 workers over the past 10 years accounted for about 31.7%, accounting for 3022 out of the total 9529.

Even today, 7 workers a day, about 2,000 workers a year, are unable to return to their families from work due to industrial accidents. This figure has no momentum to soften. However, after the promulgation of the law, it waits 4 years, including 1 year, before the law is applied. In the end, this law passed by the National Assembly is no different from the meaning of leaving the current situation unchanged for four years.

This is contrary to President Moon Jae-in’s industrial safety policy. In 2018, President Moon Jae-in announced that in 2018, along with traffic safety and suicide prevention, industrial safety was set as the three major tasks and the “national life conservation project” was implemented. Through this, it proclaimed that it would cut the industrial accident mortality rate in half by 2022.

It is raising enthusiasm by holding an inspection meeting once a month under the Prime Minister’s Office.As the ruling party has delayed applying the Severe Accident Act to workplaces with fewer than 50 employees, where about 76% of the total industrial accidents occur, the goal of half of the industrial accident mortality rate is achieved by 2022. It should be said that the water has already passed. The government ministers and the ruling party, who only represent the position of the corporations, poured cold water on the president’s policy.

▲ Moon Jae-in “I will make no one cry for safety” 13 April 2017. Moon Jae-in and Democratic Party presidential candidate Han Hye-kyung, a victim of occupational diseases at Samsung Electronics, attended the’People’s Promise Ceremony for a Life-Respecting Safety Society’ hosted by the families of the Sewol ferry, families of the victims of humidifier disinfectants, and families of Samsung Electronics semiconductor victims at Gwanghwamun Square in Jongno-gu, Seoul. They say hello to you.
Ⓒ Yoo Seongho	See related photos

In the spring of 2017, when cherry blossoms were scattered, why did our people give overwhelming support to the Moon Jae-in administration? We believe in President Moon’s sincerity to soothe the unfair deaths of the students who have fallen by the Sewol ferry disaster and create a safe society. I remember President Moon, who pledged to create a safe country by holding the hand of a bereaved family member who lost his daughter due to leukemia at Samsung Electronics while busy with the election schedule at Gwanghwamun Plaza in April 2017.

In that case, there was a belief that through the’Severe Accident Corporate Punishment Act’, which he pledged, he would create a country in which citizens and workers are not at risk due to corporate greed. He believed that it would be different from the Park Geun-hye administration, which had a tendency to stick with companies, and that he would not step on the path of the past government, which overdosed irregular workers by shouting for a good country to do business.

However, even in the Moon Jae-in administration, workers’ deaths do not stop. In Guui Station, at the Taean Thermal Power Plant, and in a freezing warehouse in Icheon, young workers who were not regular workers who could not even dream of fulfilling their dreams due to corporate greed fell into industrial accidents. In 2018, in the wake of the incident of Kim Yong-gyun, an irregular worker who died in an industrial accident on the conveyor belt of the Taean Thermal Power Plant, the Sanan Law was revised to protect subcontracted workers.However, the shipbuilding industry and thermal power generation, where many industrial accidents occur, were not regulated, so’Kim Yong-gyun without Kim Yong-gyun. He used the stigma of’law’. This is because, in the case of subcontracting by outsourcing, the business sectors that were set to obtain approval from the Ministry of Employment and Labor excluded dangerous work in shipbuilding, thermal power generation, and railroads.

It is recommended to create a’industrial accident status board’ in the Blue House.

▲ On the afternoon of December 31, 2020, the families of the victims of industrial accidents are holding a press conference calling for 2,400 people who died while working on the stairs of the Sejong Center in Jongno-gu, Seoul, to enact a proper serious disaster law, prohibit dismissal, and reinstate Kim Jin-sook.
Ⓒ Lee Hee-hoon	See related photos

Even now, I hope that President Moon Jae-in will look back on the process of enacting a law that has distorted the purpose of the legislation on the Severe Disaster Act and propose to the National Assembly to correct it. In addition, instead of the Blue House job status board full of abstract numbers, it is recommended to install a status board for the deaths of workers in industrial accidents, which are specific figures of sadness and pain.

It is suggested to instruct the Minister of Employment and Labor to identify and report on those who are injured and dying due to industrial accidents, identify the path of industrial accidents, such as why they were injured and died, and instruct them to notify workers insured in real time as a disaster notification.

In addition, the job search site should disclose information on workplaces with frequent industrial accidents so that job seekers can use workplace safety as a criterion for deciding whether or not to apply for employment. Therefore, workplaces with frequent industrial accidents should be branded as a’backward company’.

It is not time to be satisfied with a law that has lost its purpose. It is time to sound the alarm bell in the Industrial Disaster Republic.