South Korea passes Occupational Safety and Health Act amendment

The South Korean National Assembly has passed an amendment to the Occupational Safety and Health Act, introducing significant penalties for companies with frequent industrial accidents. Under the new law, employers responsible for multiple or repeated accidents may face fines of up to 5% of their operating profits. The amendment also establishes grounds to request the cancellation of business registrations for companies with frequent serious accidents and mandates that employers must stop work following corrective orders from the Ministry of Employment and Labor.

The legislation expands work stoppage rights, allowing workers, labor unions, and honorary safety inspectors to request that work be halted if safety violations are suspected. Employers are now obligated to stop work upon such requests and are prohibited from resuming operations until corrective measures are implemented. Failure to comply with these requests or penalizing workers for exercising these rights may result in criminal punishment.

While labor groups, including the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, welcomed the expansion of work stoppage rights, they noted that the amendment fails to address wage guarantees during work stoppages or protections for special employment workers. Conversely, the opposition People Power Party criticized the scale of the fines, arguing that the 5% operating profit cap could lead to the cancellation of major construction firms, potentially displacing tens of thousands of workers.