On June 24, when the church was celebrating the birth of Saint John the Baptist, a tragic event occurred at a factory in Korea. A serious fire disaster occurred at a primary lithium battery company, killing 23 people, including 18 migrant workers.
The workers did not receive proper safety training because they were not full-time employees but belonged to a labor dispatch company. It is a factory that handles dangerous hazardous substances, and although a fire broke out a few days before this disaster, no safety measures were implemented. In the end, 17 Chinese, 5 Koreans, and 1 Laotian lost their lives in the fire.
At 7 p.m. on July 2, ten days after the accident, a memorial service was held in front of the Seoul Employment and Labor Office to honor the victims. The columnist decided to participate in the event along with immigrant and refugee activists from the parish. When he arrived at the location, he first noticed the words on the banner. “We did not come to die! Migrant workers want to work safely!”
The words ‘We did not come to die’ stuck in his mind. The workers came to this unfamiliar place to better the conditions of the families they left at home. However, they can no longer be with their family due to negligence, carelessness, and complacency. Yet, the investigation into the cause of the accident and the assignment of responsibility is progressing slowly, making it difficult to calm the columnist's mind.
If proper safety measures had been taken during the fire that occurred before the disaster, or if only workers had been properly educated on the location of emergency exits and how to escape, the tragedy in which more than 20 precious lives were lost would not have filled him with regret.
This is not the first tragedy of this kind. Tragedies occur repeatedly every few years such as the fatal accident of an employee of a screen door maintenance company, the fatal accident at a Thermal Power Plant, and the fatal accident at Pyeongtaek Port. Because of one of the deaths, an atmosphere of reflection on our society, where people do not receive proper education or protection due to excessive subcontracting, was created, and a discussion about 'outsourcing of death' began, which eventually resulted in the 'Serious Accident Punishment Act'.
However, as the first ruling applying the law resulted in a suspended sentence, controversy over its effectiveness arose, and the current administration expressed its intention to revise the law because it harms corporate morale. There is still a long way to go.
Of the 17 victims of Chinese nationality, the majority were Chinese female workers, commonly referred to as ethnic Koreans. Strictly speaking, they cannot be called immigrants because they are overseas Koreans, but the fact that they are from a country other than Korea and are working as outsourced workers in industries that Korean nationals avoid makes it clear that their situation is no different from that of immigrants of other nationalities. Because there is no language barrier, they are treated as so-called 'cost-effective migrant workers'.
According to data from the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the total number of deaths from industrial accidents in Korea last year was 812, of which 85 were migrant workers or 10.4%. As of the first quarter of this year, the rate of industrial accident deaths among migrant workers was 11.2% (24 out of 213), already exceeding last year's rate.
Considering the National Statistical Office's announcement that the total number of migrant workers last year was 923,000, exceeding 3.2% of the total number of employed people (28,416,000), an all-time high, the number of immigrants who will be sacrificed if this type of disaster is repeated is expected to increase. This is why we must listen to their cry— "We did not come to die!"
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