Kim Jae-sun, a worker aged 26, died while working at a site that treated waste wood in the metropolitan city of Gwangju on May 22. He slipped and was sucked into the disintegrator while working on top of the machine. In January 2014, another worker in this company also died after he was caught in the conveyor belt of the disintegrator for waste wood. At the time, authorities pointed out that the company failed to install safety devices, but no safety device, such as hand railings or covers, was found in the disintegrator where the fatal accident occurred this time either.

When Kim’s bereaved family first met with the company’s representative, they were told, “We don’t understand why he did something that we don’t usually tell him to do, why he had to climb up there and die. It was his error.” On May 27, Kim’s father said, “A sincere apology and some warm words of comfort would have been enough, but the company never provided them. I want to say that the safety at all industrial sites is something that everyone should guarantee together, not just the worker himself.”

As fatal accidents recur in worksites, more and more voices are calling for lawmakers to enact a bill that would punish companies for severe industrial accidents. They believe the structural cause for failing to guarantee safety in workplaces lies with the corporation and management and argue that the government must strictly hold them responsible by imposing massive fines. Gapjil 119 recently conducted a survey of sixty labor attorneys, lawyers, and labor group activists and asked them which of President Moon Jae-in’s campaign pledges on labor the twenty-first National Assembly should first enact. The bill on the punishment of companies for serious industrial accidents topped the list. When he was a presidential candidate, President Moon had promised to enact the bill in order to strengthen the responsibility of the business owner for serious accidents.

Sixty-five labor unions--affiliated with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions--in worksites where a fatal industrial accident had occurred in the past decade held a press conference in front of the National Assembly this day and argued, “The business owners did not prevent the deaths that they could have definitely prevented. We need to strictly hold companies that kill workers and deny responsibility responsible and protect the lives of the workers.”