General contractors to face heavier punishment for industrial deaths

By Kim Se-jeong

General contractors will face up to seven years in jail or a maximum 100 million won in fines in the event of an industrial death that occurs due to lax implementation of safety guidelines.

Currently, they only face up to one year in jail or 10 million won in fines. Labor safety experts criticized that the current punishment is too lenient to curb the rate of industrial deaths in Korea. Experts said the lenient punishment also made the contractors grow ignorant of health and safety for construction site workers.

The measure announced on Thursday was a follow-up on President Moon Jae-in’s speech in July in which he stressed “nothing can be more important at a construction site than workers’ safety and health.”

The tougher punishment was among other measures announced Thursday to ensure labor safety at construction sites.

General contractors will be banned from subcontracting 14 highly dangerous processes, including smelting mercury. Currently, there’s no such regulation.

Also, general contractors will be required to make safety and health training a priority when selecting a subcontractor, which doesn’t happen at the moment.

For a construction project costing more than 20 billion won, the building owner will also be required to make safety and health evaluations of workers and reveal the results.

According to 2014 statistics, the latest available, Korea had 18 deaths per 100,000 workers.

The measures drew enthusiasm from workers but still left many questions, for example how to evaluate general contractors’ protection of workers’ health and safety.