South Korea's business community is calling for follow-up measures to limit the side effects of a revised industrial safety law that clears the way for fines of up to 5% of operating profit on companies with repeated workplace deaths, after the bill passed the National Assembly.
The Korea Enterprises Federation said in a statement on the 1st that the standard is "excessive and unrealistic, failing to take account of the business environment, and could result in astronomical fines on large workplaces." It added: "For small and mid-sized companies, we are deeply concerned because the impact is expected to be serious enough to threaten their survival."
Under the partial amendment to the Occupational Safety and Health Act passed by the National Assembly on the same day, the labor minister may impose a fine of up to 5% of operating profit on an employer when three or more workers die within the past year in industrial accidents caused by the employer's failure to meet safety and health obligations.
The federation said that while legislation tightening penalties on employers has continued in recent years, including a full revision of the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the enactment of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act, the effect of after-the-fact punishment has been limited. "Creating yet another fine system, a powerful form of economic penalty, and applying it on top of existing rules amounts to excessive sanctions on employers and is unlikely to prevent industrial accidents," it said.
The group also voiced concern that the criteria set out in the amendment are not clear. "This amendment eases the conditions under which workers can halt work to cases where there is an imminent danger or a risk of one, but the standard for judgment is unclear, making disagreements and disputes between labor and management over whether and how far to stop work unavoidable," the federation said.
"Halting work to secure workers' lives and safety is necessary, but the absence of clear standards is undesirable because it invites subjective and arbitrary judgments by stakeholders, deepening confusion at worksites and raising the possibility of abuse," it said.
The federation added that the business community wants lawmakers to avoid legislation focused solely on tougher sanctions and punishment for employers and to pursue reasonable debate that supports genuine improvement in safety management capacity. "We hope the government will work on subordinate decrees and application guidelines to minimize the side effects of the law taking effect," it said.
