Workers are on duty at a construction site in Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, March 30 (Korea Bizwire) — The top court has toughened the sentencing guidelines for fatal industrial accidents that result from violations of safety measures amid mounting criticism that the punishment for those who caused the accidents is too lenient.
The Sentencing Commission of the Supreme Court confirmed Monday that the basic sentence range is between one year and 2 1/2 years for business owners or contractors accused of breaching the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and failing to prevent an industrial disaster resulting in the death of a worker.
The punishment could be aggravated to a maximum of 10 1/2 years for repeat offenders and in cases where multiple casualties occur.
The sentence range has been revised up by 2-3 years from the existing guidelines partly to reflect criticism that the punishment for business owners failing to fulfill obligations to protect their workers is too lenient.
According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor, only 0.5 percent of business owners indicted for violating the industrial safety act were given a prison term between 2007 and 2016.
Demand for a safe work environment has been growing especially since the death of a young worker at a thermoelectric power plant in Taean, 150 kilometers southwest of Seoul, in December 2018.
Kim Yong-kyun, 24, was found dead about five hours after being trapped in a conveyor belt at the plant’s coal conveyance facility, while inspecting the facility alone in violation of a safety rule that requires two people to work as a team.
Early last year, the act was revised to aim at reducing on-duty deaths or other severe workplace disasters, protect people working in hazardous environments and enhance punishments for safety rules violations.
(Yonhap)
