3 Years of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act
The 'Right to Stop Work' to Prevent Industrial Accidents: Status of Implementation Unknown

[비즈한국] Another worker who headed out to a construction site today did not return home. Construction is the industry with the highest number of fatal accidents in South Korea. Our society enacted the Act on Punishment, etc. for Serious Accidents (Serious Accidents Punishment Act), which came into full effect in January 2022, to prevent tragic accidents where workers lose their lives due to the failure to fulfill safety and health obligations. However, the number of workers who lose their lives at construction sites each year remains in the triple digits. What efforts should our society make to reduce fatal accidents at construction sites?

As President Lee Jae-myung recently ordered a stern response to a series of recent industrial accidents, both the industry and the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the competent ministry, are on high alert. However, it has been confirmed that the government does not even properly track the use of the "right to stop work," which is a key tool for preventing industrial accidents.

The right to stop work refers to a worker's right to stop working and evacuate when they judge that there is an imminent risk of an industrial accident. With the total revision of the Occupational Safety and Health Act in January 2019, the worker's right to stop work was officially codified. According to the revised law, when a worker exercises the right to stop work, they must report it to the supervisor without delay, and the supervisor, upon receiving the report, must take safety and health measures. Employers must not dismiss or otherwise disadvantage workers who legitimately exercise their right to stop work.

According to Bizhankook’s reporting, the government currently fails to track the implementation of the right to stop work at industrial sites. The Ministry of Employment and Labor, as the competent ministry, has not compiled data on the use of this right across the country's entire industrial sector, nor for specific industries or individual companies, since the relevant legal provisions were newly established. An official from the Ministry of Employment and Labor's Safety and Health Supervision Planning Division stated, "Current law does not mandate reporting regarding the exercise of the right to stop work," and added, "There is nothing currently being prepared (to track the status of the right to stop work)."

Monitoring the status of the right to stop work currently relies on voluntary disclosures by companies. However, even this is often shrouded in obscurity. Bizhankook analyzed the sustainability reports of the top 6 listed construction companies: Samsung C&T028260, Hyundai E&C000720, Daewoo E&C047040, DL E&C375500, GS E&C006360, and HDC Hyundai Development Company. The analysis revealed that two of these firms—Hyundai E&C and DL E&C—did not disclose their status regarding the exercise of the right to stop work last year. Among the remaining construction companies that did disclose data, there was a wide gap: Samsung C&T’s construction division reported 236,334 cases (from April last year to March this year), followed by Daewoo E&C with 130,993, HDC Hyundai Development Company with 1,149, and GS E&C with 95.

Only a small number of workers say they are guaranteed the right to stop work at construction sites. According to a survey conducted last year by the Korean Construction Workers' Union, among 1,660 workers who have experience working at sites of the top 10 construction companies by capacity, only 288 (17.3%) felt they were actually guaranteed the right to stop work. The remaining 1,189 (72%) had never requested to stop work, and 184 (11%) had requested to stop work but were ignored.

Strengthening the right to stop work was a campaign promise of President Lee Jae-myung. During his time as a candidate for the 21st presidential election, President Lee pledged, as part of his "respect for labor and guarantee of rights" platform, to "grant workers the right to request the employer to stop work and take corrective measures when there is a high likelihood of harm or danger at the worksite." This aims to ease the criteria for exercising the right to stop work under current law from "cases where there is an imminent risk of an industrial accident" to "situations where the occurrence of harm or danger is highly likely." It is reported that the government is currently considering expanding and strengthening the right to stop work.

Son Jin-woo, director of the Korea Institute of Labor Safety and Health, pointed out, "Because there are many cases where workers who reveal risks by exercising the right to stop work face direct or indirect disadvantages, workers at actual industrial sites cannot properly use this right. There is an urgent need to grasp the status and conduct research on the operation of the right to stop work," adding, "We must look at not only the simple frequency of the right to stop work being invoked, but also the qualitative aspects, such as what content became the subject of the work stoppage and what measures were subsequently taken."