Human Rights Commission Recommends Direct Employment of Subcontracted Workers for Essential Maintenance at Thermal Power Plants... Ministry of Industry and Others Reject

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-ju] The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, and all five power generation companies have rejected the National Human Rights Commission's recommendation to directly employ subcontracted workers engaged in essential maintenance tasks at coal-fired power plants to prevent the "outsourcing of risk."

On the 14th, the Human Rights Commission reviewed the implementation plans submitted by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of Economy and Finance and judged that they did not accept the Commission's recommendation, publicly announcing this decision.

On February 22, the Human Rights Commission recommended direct employment to improve the labor rights of subcontracted workers engaged in essential maintenance tasks at thermal power plants. In response, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, and the five power generation companies replied to the Commission that "in the areas of fuel and environmental equipment operation, subsidiaries have been established to convert workers to regular employees, and in the routine maintenance sector, private consignment is maintained as is, while measures to enhance employment stability such as contract extensions and employment succession are being pursued."

The Human Rights Commission viewed their responses as fundamentally maintaining the outsourcing of both fuel and environmental equipment operation and routine maintenance tasks, which are essential maintenance duties at power plants, thus not accepting the Commission's recommendation. The Commission pointed out, "Outsourcing through subcontracting leads to subcontracted workers' safety being neglected and increases the risk of accidents due to cost reduction efforts. When primary and subcontracted tasks are organically connected, communication is very important, but if the primary contractor directly instructs the work, the subcontracting may be deemed illegal, preventing immediate response to dangerous situations, thereby threatening subcontracted workers' safety and leading to actual accidents."

The Commission added, "Life and safety are the most fundamental and core values of human rights. We have determined that the government needs to adopt a more proactive stance and make active efforts to improve the issue of outsourcing risk in our society and to protect the life and safety of all workers, and therefore decided to publicly announce the related content."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.