"Working at power plants, dying off the record: subcontracted workers excluded from industrial accident statistics", 4 September 2025

Workers who die while working at power plants have been excluded from official industrial accident statistics if they are not classified as directly employed or under formal subcontracting agreements, it has emerged. Experts argue that deaths in the workplace that fall into statistical blind spots—such as those involving outsourced or commissioned labour—must be properly captured in the system.

One of the clearest examples, according to interviews and document analysis on 3 September, involves freight workers. These workers frequently perform regular unloading tasks at power plants, but due to a convoluted employment chain—often stretching from the power company to a subcontractor, then to a transport firm, and finally to the freight worker—they fall outside conventional classifications.

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In September 2020, a freight driver identified as Mr. B was killed at the No. 1 coal unloading dock of the Taean Thermal Power Plant, operated by Korea Western Power. He was crushed by a screw component used in unloading machinery while trying to secure it onto his lorry. Mr. B had been hired for the day by Shinheung Machinery, the company contracted by the power plant to handle removal and maintenance of unloading equipment. When Shinheung Machinery filed a lawsuit against the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service to overturn a decision recognising the death as an industrial accident, the court ruled in its favour in July 2022. As a result, Mr. B’s death was not officially recorded as a workplace fatality.

Labour advocates say the current system of counting fatalities based on formal employment or subcontracting contracts distorts the data, especially in sectors characterised by complex subcontracting chains, outsourced services, or commissioned work.

[…] Kwon Young-guk, leader of the Justice Party and former secretary of the Kim Yong-gyun Special Investigation Committee, said: “Regardless of the contractual form—subcontracting, outsourcing, or commissioning—if a workplace or facility is effectively controlled, managed or operated by a company, any accidents occurring there should be included in industrial accident statistics.”

[…] Lawyer Park Da-hye of the firm Gorun argued that excluding such deaths undermines the legislative intent of the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the Serious Accidents Punishment Act.

The Ministry of Employment and Labour has taken a cautious stance. A ministry official noted: “If the case goes beyond the legal definition of a contractor under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, it may not be captured in statistics,” adding, “There is understandable hesitation in counting cases for which a company is not legally responsible, even if the incident occurred at its facility.”