South Korean Businesses Worried About Implementation of New Safety Law

It will be interesting to see how this safety law is enforced because you can have good safety practices and sometime things just happen:

An employee makes dough at a bakery in Seoul on Friday, one day before expanded implementation of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act, a workplace safety law aimed at penalizing employers for serious industrial accidents, takes effect as scheduled. (Yonhap)

Expanded application of the workplace safety law is expected to have a substantial impact on the South Korean business community, as it holds employers with more than five workers legally responsible for deadly accidents. Concerns are growing as this change, which officially took effect Saturday, will cover 837,000 workplaces, including small neighborhood restaurants, bakeries, pubs, cafes and mom-and-pop stores.

Regardless of the size of the businesses and their financial capabilities, under the law, employers of small and large companies face the same criminal charges if a deadly accident happens during their operations.

“I am paying more attention to safety as the workplace safety law is expanded. But I am very concerned that if an accident occurs, the business will be forced to close,” said a business owner surnamed Kim, who has been running a timber company in North Chungcheong Province for 30 years. His company has 20 employees.

The food service industry argues that safety support should be provided before punishment is pursued.

“Many restaurant business owners are anxious because they think guidelines on the scope of responsibility are unclear. They are also worried since even with good safety training, accidents can always occur due to employee negligence. Some business owners are expected to reduce the number of employees they have hired for a long time to avoid the application of the law,” an official from the Korea Food Service Industry Association said.

Korea Herald

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