“Isn’t there something I have to do?” “A person was taken to the hospital.”
On the day when the maximum daytime temperature in Seoul was 35 degrees and the red bar on the thermometer hanging at the construction site exceeded 40 degrees, Jeon Jae-hee, head of the labor safety and health department of the National Construction Labor Union, also caught fire. Amidst the heat wave, people at the construction site send SOS to the labor union, not the Ministry of Employment and Labor, which distributes the ‘Guidelines for Implementing the 3 Basic Rules for Heat Stroke Prevention’.
The ‘three basic rules for preventing heat stroke’ are for those who work in heat waves to work with water, shade and rest. In some areas, the scene starts at 5:00 in the morning. It is difficult to work from early in the morning in densely populated areas, and it is possible in suburban housing development districts, but it is not easy because you have to wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning to go to work at 5.
■ The body exploded after labor.
I can’t forget the person who died of heatstroke in the summer of 2022. It was a notorious middle-of-the-road contractor that received a lot of goods and turned a small number of people. A worker died while pouring concrete at the site where he would return even if he said he couldn’t do it because of the heat. “The whole body is ripe,” said the doctor.
It is said that the time to report heat stroke at a construction site is 4:00 p.m. If you take a break during lunchtime or around 2:00 p.m. when it is hottest, you will not fall down. I couldn’t rest enough and I was working for a while, and my body temperature suddenly rose and I collapsed. At 4:00 p.m., her body ‘exploded’ after completing the labor assigned to her.
Jeon Jae-hee’s words, which continued at a fast pace, stopped for a moment. Since people who do this kind of work are accused of being ‘blackmail criminals’ and sent to prison, news of accidents coming from the site is leaking. Over the past few years, the number of construction union members has increased rapidly. Young people who sold cell phones, welded at a shipyard, and went to a construction site after a travel agency went bankrupt due to COVID-19 said they could survive with this safety net because there is a construction union fence.
‘There are scenes that are out of reach.’ As wages, employment, and safety, which construction workers have been negotiating in search of the Labor Standards Act and Trade Union Act, have turned into threats and blackmail against construction companies, more and more sites are kicking out those who belong to unions. Even if it seems like an accident is about to happen, there is no one to talk about, so it is not annoying, and even if less money is given, the construction works, so construction sites and construction companies can feel refreshed as if they had lost a tooth.
■ Accident site record, cause investigation… What the unions are doing, not the government.
In the past few weeks, we have been examining accidents that have occurred on the ground, and there have been three deaths of union members and two deaths of non-members. “I fell from a six-story horse scaffolding (a ladder with a step at the top) and died. They said he took off his labor union vest and went in and worked. I got a call late.” The breaking news that ‘he died after being hit by an elevator part while preparing materials at the site of a hoist (cargo moving device)’ was found and he was a member of the union.
If the connection with the labor union is cut off, it cannot be taken care of in the beginning. Calling 119, recording the scene of the accident, finding witnesses and finding the cause of the accident, and stopping work and demanding safety measures if a second accident is likely to occur are what the labor union has done, not the government.
Jeon Jae-hee, who was traveling around the site and campaigning for the enactment of the law, said that he was so happy that he was dumbfounded when the ‘Severe Disaster Punishment Act’ was passed in 2021. Since it is a construction site where workers die the most, I knew that once the law was enforced, workers who ‘hammer, wire, and hook rebar’ would participate and talk about how to reduce accidents.
■ The government doesn’t give 30,000 won safety belts, but the government asks to use 1 million won smart vests.
However, in 2023, when a worker dies바카라사이트, the company’s name is removed from the site and even the mark on the safety helmet is erased. The government’s accident investigation report does not mention the name of the construction company. Instead, the government suggests doing ‘smart safety’. It is said that a ‘smart vest’ can prevent death from falling. There are also ‘smart earplugs’. After spending 1 million won for a smart vest and 1 million won for ear plugs, I don’t know if I will be able to buy safety shoes and safety belts from the site safety management fee. I’m not trying to give you a safety belt that costs 30,000 won.
Jeon Jae-hee thinks of a person who went to prison. Kim Tae-bum, who called Jae-hee Jeon, head of the Gyeonggi Midwest Construction Branch of the Construction Workers’ Union, ‘daughter!’ He abandoned the ‘Oyaji’ notebook and joined the construction union. The text message sent to Jeon Jae-hee was a picture of a summer thermometer and was full of news of her union members’ accidents. 70-year-old Kim Tae-bum was arrested after receiving two years in prison for ‘blackmail’. ‘I was honest’ ‘I was confident’ Jeon Jae-hee says that people who work hard are worth it.
Forcing them to take off their labor union vests is to deprive them of the sense of belonging they so desperately needed. I was warm because I had a community, and I was proud to be called a worker, not a laborer. Because of the labor union, they were able to make a calendar just like the bankers. If there was no labor union, under the prime contractor, under the subcontractor, under the Shidaoke (subcontractor), under the Oyaji… Illegal subcontracting, which required seven or eight phone calls to receive a daily wage, may still have been natural. Why are the government and the police turning a blind eye to illegal subcontracting that has not been rooted out? ■ I went out to Gwanghwamun, Seoul on May 16, 2023, saying that citizens were uncomfortable because the National Construction Workers’ Union held a two-day, one-night rally because I couldn’t leave a single grain of hard
.
A row of achromatic vests were sitting with the sun shining on their heads. After standing for about an hour, a worker stood up in the middle of the asphalt and brought a black bag and held out an ice bar. Standing in the shade of a tree and looking at it is not at all difficult, but after receiving the red bean shaved ice hard, I couldn’t leave a single red bean grain attached to the stick.
Sukyung Jeon Labor Health Solidarity