중재법 퇴고_조혜윤

[조혜윤]

In 2021, Serious Accidents Punishment Act (hereafter SAPA) was enacted with the recognition that serious occupational incidents stem from systemic and structural issues within companies, such as inadequate safety management systems and the absence of risk management systems. The act holds employers or executives accountable for their duty to improve and assure safety of workers by preventing major industrial accidents. If employers or higher-ups violate their duty to assure safe working conditions, and they lead to major industrial accidents, they could be criminally punished. The law initially targeted businesses with 50 or more employees. Starting from next year, the law will be applied to workplaces with a workforce of 5 to less than 50 employees. Recently, regarding the application of law for smaller workforces, the ruling party and DP are pushing for an amendment to postpone the law application for additional two years.

Those advocating for the postponement claim lack of business preparedness as the reason. This is true, but does not necessarily prove that the law puts excessive burden on employers. Rather, what the political circles should discuss is, how the government should allocate finances for employers so that they can better implement safety measures. For instance, labor ministry has been financing small businesses for training and recruitment of safety and health management personnels - which have been hailed as crucial for SMEs. Since these businesses lack financial means to do so, these types of government measures can equip businesses with specialists for on-site inspections and interventions. They are critical for preventing occupational injuries or deaths.

However, currently there is a lack of specialized personnel and insufficient budget for these preemptive measures. This emphasizes the urgent need for bold government support, which also means that further postponing the application of the act could give a justificatory allibi for the government to neglect their duties. Under SAPA, the ministry of labor is responsible for coming up with concrete plans to execute implementation and financial allocation for building safety measures. Most notably, small-scale manufacturing industries, which recorded higher number of on-the-job deaths, face challenges as they lack the budget to subcontract safe machinery installations. This inevitably results in a higher rate of fatal accidents. Additionally, civil societies claim that postponing the law application to businesses fewer than 50 employees, where 80% of work-related fatalities occur, implies continuing to push workers to death.

Discussions on the postponement of law application may only cause side effects, such as negligence of poor labor conditions. The politics must ramp up their efforts to discuss what ought to be done in order to protect workers' rights to safety, regardless of the size of workplace they provide labor for.