"Management Risks Increased"... KCCI Submits Proposal for Amendment of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act to the Government

The Korea Employers Federation announced on the 31st that it has submitted a proposal to the government to amend the Serious Accidents Punishment Act. The business community argued that although a year has passed since the enforcement of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act, there has been no clear effect in reducing accidents, and only management risks have increased.

The government launched and has been operating a TF to improve the Serious Accidents Punishment Act regulations from January this year as a follow-up measure to the 'Serious Accident Reduction Roadmap.' Experts have been preparing improvement plans until recently. Accordingly, the Korea Employers Federation submitted the proposal, requesting that industry demands be thoroughly addressed by the TF.

The main proposal is to clarify ambiguous parts of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act. First, it is argued that the scope of fatalities in serious industrial accidents should be revised from the current 'one or more persons' to 'two persons simultaneously or two or more persons within the past year.'

Additionally, it requested that the target of management responsibility be expanded by revising it to 'a person delegated with authority and responsibility to manage the organization, personnel, and budget related to safety and health of the relevant business.' It also demanded that the duties of management responsibility be clarified as establishing and implementing a risk assessment system closely related to the causes of serious accidents, establishing and implementing recurrence prevention measures when serious accidents occur, and management measures under the Industrial Safety and Health Act.

Furthermore, it proposed deleting the criminal punishment provisions for management responsibility and switching to a reasonable level of economic penalties, or changing the current regulation of 'imprisonment of one year or more (minimum sentence setting method)' to 'imprisonment of up to seven years (maximum sentence setting method).'

It also added a request to extend the enforcement period by two years to allow small-scale businesses with fewer than 50 employees to build and implement safety and health management systems with government assistance, providing preparation time for legal compliance.

Ryu Ki-jung, Executive Director of the Korea Employers Federation, said, "If the TF focuses only on reviewing the government's roadmap content, there is a fundamental limit to resolving on-site confusion and management risks," and added, "Amendments must be promptly prepared so that various problems arising after the enforcement of the law can be improved."