[ad_1]
Death of steel worker A of the ‘fifth subcontracting’Foreign worker
1.4 billion won → 10 million won construction after multiple stages
Drop in ‘hack’ security cost reduction
The company that gave me work is not responsible
Out of 178 cases, 52 cases of punishment for both subcontractors
78 cases confirmed by the payer during the ruling
Prosecutor ‘0’, including 14 orders from public institutions
On May 25, 2019, A (48), an employee of a small steel structure installation company, was killed at the construction site of a model apartment home in Suncheon, Jeollanam-do. Early in the morning, while climbing a steel pillar to work, another pillar erected nearby collapsed and hit the place where Mr. A was standing. On impact, Mr. A lost his balance and fell to the ground 5, 8 m lower.
The Gwangju District Court’s Suncheon Branch case decision on February 14 last year details the process of A’s death. About ten days before the incident, the work was performed by employees of another steel structures company B Company. basic on site. Company B used a “trick” to save money. It is required to use 70cm or more anchor bolt (a bolt connecting the reinforcement and concrete) when nailing the steel frame to the ground, but when the bolts did not fit well, it was instructed to cut it about 25 ~ 30 cm. Subsequently, company A, which was entrusted with part of the work, entered the site and Mr. A died on the third day of work.
View larger image
Most of those who died in industrial accidents fell and died. It has been that way for decades. According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor Workplace Safety Accident Status obtained by Kyunghyang Shinmun on the 4th through the Kang Eun-mi Justice Party Assembly Office, 754 people were killed in 710 industrial accidents in a year last year. There were 324 cases (45.6%) of “falls”, almost half, and 398 cases (56%) in the construction industry. Construction and accident. Mr. A’s death contains both types of industrial accidents.
There is another feature revealed in the case of Mr. A. It is a multi-level outsourcing problem. The new construction job Mr. A worked on was a contract that a company in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, which was more than 300 km from Suncheon, received an order from ○○ Co., Ltd. for 1, 44 billion won. Woncheong Lee (original contractor) awarded a secondary contract to a manufacturing company that performed the steel frame process, and the secondary contractor delivered it to another company. It was received and subcontracted by the tertiary contractor to Company B, principal of ‘insolvent basic work’, for 31 million won, and Company B cut part of the work and handed it over to Company A for 1.71 million won . 1,433.29 million won were lost by hand on the five-stage recruiting network. Even the second and third contractors seem to take only the margins of the brokerage and are not involved in the actual construction. The cost of having enough seat belts, lanyards, and fall protection nets, which could have saved Mr. A, may have evaporated.
Even the punishment was typical. Woncheong Corporation (original contractor) was fined 5 million won, and Company A and Company B paid 2.5 million won each. ○○ Co., Ltd., who gave the job, did not assume any responsibility. As long as the structure in which only some officials in the outsourcing stage pay petty sentences remains intact, a death like Mr. A’s is likely to be repeated in the future.
As a result of a full investigation of 178 first trial rulings related to industrial accident fatalities last year, Kyunghyang Shinmun found that both parties to the contract, namely the original and the subcontractors, stood side by side in 52 cases in the that 54 people died. As for subcontractors, 41 of 71 (57%) were sentenced to prison and financial prison, and there were rare cases of legal detention. 52 people were punished on the court side, mostly fines rather than prison.
However, experts say these numbers only partially reveal reality. At trial, the subcontractor and subcontract simply represent the relationship between supply and demand in the business contract, and the “true decision maker” is not liable. Experts say you need to pay attention to clients who order and pay for the work. Myung-seon Choi, head of the KCTU Occupational Safety and Health Office, said: “The customer who has strong authority over the air (construction period), the budget and the process, and can even change the design, it really determines the atmosphere of the site. “Increases the risk of accidents as process changes.”
Of the 178 sentences, 78 cases were confirmed to be the client. There were 64 private organizations, such as real estate developers and reconstruction associations. The situation where safety was neglected due to tight construction times or reduced construction costs was revealed everywhere. In the case of a 75-year-old worker who crashed in June 2019, the court ruled that “a structural problem was affected whereby it was difficult to take sufficient safety measures in light of the construction cost of the company.” In the case of a 56-year-old worker who died in October of that year, the court took the situation into account, saying: “We neglected security measures due to the poor condition of having to cover the labor costs of three workers at a cost construction cost of 2 million won. “
There were also 14 cases in which local governments and public institutions were confirmed as order destinations. In projects ordered by the Korea Water Resources Corporation, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation, and the Armed Forces Financial Management Group, 14 people died from burial, drowning, entrapment and falling. These agencies were not prosecuted either.
The backbone of the Severe Accident Corporate Sanctions Act is to assign more responsibility to whoever benefits at the expense of worker safety. The Occupational Safety and Health Law, which was completely revised in 2019, has been improved by ordering the establishment of a health and safety plan for the client, but it is noted that the only mandatory measure is a fine. The Serious Accident Law allowed the scope of punishment to be extended to those who ordered the project. Previously, the Ministry of Labor proposed that government amendments to the government should eliminate punishment by the client because it is excessive to assume the obligation to take safety and health measures only by order.
View larger image
About 13% of those who died in industrial accidents in 2020 were foreigners. As the proportion of foreign workers in small construction and manufacturing workplaces increases, the death rate also increases year over year.
According to the ‘Status of workplace safety accidents’ presented by the Ministry of Employment and Labor on the 4th by the Eun-mi Kang Justice Office, a total of 754 people were killed in 710 industrial accidents throughout the country last year. Among them, 95 (12.5%) were foreigners. By industry, 47 (49.4%) died while working in the construction industry and 35 (36.8%) in the manufacturing industry. The proportion of foreign deaths in the manufacturing industry was 10.4 percentage points higher than the manufacturing industry rate of 26.4% in total deaths. The proportion of foreigners who are employed by small and medium-sized enterprises with fewer than 300 employees and capital of 8 billion won or less under the work permit system is analyzed to be high, and they are mainly placed in risky jobs most avoided in factories. The cause of death of foreign workers was that 33.6% (32 people) and 18.9% (18 people) were captured.
95 out of 754 last year … Half built
Increases each year as entry of hazardous work increases
There are no statistics on deaths such as taxes and fishing.
Multiple catastrophes, in which three or more foreign workers died simultaneously, were also frequent. On December 20 last year, at the construction site of a distribution warehouse in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi-do, five Chinese compatriots collapsed the slab platform, killing three people and seriously injuring two. The Icheon warehouse fire disaster, where 38 people were killed in April last year, included two Chinese and one Kazakh.
The proportion of accidents of foreign workers increases every year. According to the Ministry of Labor, the proportion of foreign fatalities in total fatalities increased from 9.3% in 2017 to 12.0% in 2019 and 12.5% last year. There are many cases in which the deaths of foreign workers engaged in agriculture and fishing are not included in the statistics. On December 20 last year, on a farm in Pocheon, Gyeonggi-do, a foreign worker from Cambodia died in his sleep in a greenhouse with a broken heating system, but this was not included in the statistics.
In the case of foreign workers, it is difficult to share information about hazards in the workplace due to language problems, and they are easily exposed to poverty because their status is not free due to the illegal system of residence permits and job. Gang Jeong-ju, head of the KCTU Occupational Safety and Health Office, said: “In the case of manufacturing workplaces, migrant workers are mainly engaged in difficult tasks that domestic workers are reluctant to perform, how to handle dangerous chemicals. ” It is noted that these “dead zones” should also be considered in the process of discussing laws related to industrial safety, such as the Law on Corporate Punishment for Severe Accidents.
