“When the Moon Jae-in government launched, I thought it would completely turn the world around. They said they would stop deaths from industrial accidents and get rid of non-regular workers, but what have they been doing? How many more must die? The boys went to work. They didn’t go to die.”

At a funeral parlor at Anjung Baek Hospital in Anjung-eup, Pyeongtaek-si in Gyeonggi on May 9, Yi Jae-hun (59), the father of Yi Seon-ho (23), who died while working at the new container terminal at the Port of Pyeongtaek on April 22, cried in front of Kim Je-nam, senior presidential secretary for civil society, who came to pay his respects.

The father and son were day workers employed by a subcontractor of Dongbang, which managed the container where the accident occurred. Seon-ho was first sent to the site, where a safety manager was not present, and died after being crushed under the wing of a 300kg container. He was not even given a safety helmet. When his father, who could not let his son die in vain, demanded an investigation into the truth two weeks later, the company, the government and politicians began to pay attention to the case, which could have remained simply as the death of an unknown worker in his twenties--just like the deaths of workers in the past. Kim Yong-kyun, Jang Min-sun, Lee Han-bit, Mun Jung-won, etc.

While fatal accidents continued in the workplace and companies and the government repeatedly evaded responsibility, the families of the victims were forced to become “fighters.”

The appeal by Kim Mi-sook (Mi-suk), the mother of Kim Yong-kyun, who died at the Taean Thermal Power Plant in 2018, provided the foundation for the Act on the Punishment of Serious Accidents. Kim said, “If the victims’ families do not step up, society won’t listen; so the victims’ families have no choice but to speak up.” Jang Min-sun committed suicide after complaining of an excessive workload while working as a web designer at ST Unitas, an online education firm. Lee Han-bit was a producer who took his own life after pointing out the problem of excessive workloads, widespread in the media industry. Mun Jung-won was a horse jockey who died after exposing the corruption in the Korea Racing Authority. All of their deaths raised an alarm on the poor working environment only after their families, such as the father, older sister, and wife brought the issue up for public debate. Jang’s older sister Jang Hyang-mi said, “If the investigations were conducted properly, the families would not have had to step up and speak to the press. I regret the situation, which has forced the victims’ families to become fighters on the street.”

Yi Jae-hun said he would not end the funeral proceedings until authorities conducted an investigation and provided measures to prevent recurrence. Yi said, “Last March, a new project director came from the main contractor and changed the working system claiming to save costs. The employees argued that it could lead to an accident, and eventually my son died.” He continued and said, “Every time the people from the main contractor came to the funeral parlor and tried to quickly settle the case, it tore my heart apart.” A representative of a group demanding a proper response to the late Yi Seon-ho’s fatal accident said, “The Act on the Punishment of Serious Accidents will soon be enforced, but even yesterday, fatal accidents continued at Hyundai Heavy Industries and Hyundai Steel. We need to improve the entire system.” Dongbang requested the government to lift the suspension of operations at the workplace on May 4, when the investigation into the cause of the accident had not been concluded, but did not receive the approval from the Ministry of Employment and Labor.