A Study on the Impact of Industrial Accident Prevention Duty Conflict on Safety Management Effectiveness and an Integrated Responsibility Model in Multi-tier Subcontracting of the Power Industry

Abstract

This study aims to identify the structural causes behind the recurrence of the late Mr. Kim Chunghyun's fatal accident(2025) within the same multi-tier subcontracting structure of the power industry—despite the comprehensive amendment of the Industrial Safety and Health Act(hereinafter “ISHA”)(2020) and the implementation of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act(2022) following the late Mr. Kim Yonggyun's accident (2018)—in the conflict of duties that the ISHA and the Act on the Protection of Dispatched Workers(hereinafter “APDW”) impose on prime contractors, and to propose an integrated responsibility model to resolve it. As its method, this study adopts an integrated approach combining statutory and case law analysis with safety management system analysis. Treating the Kim Yonggyun case as the background of institutional reinforcement, it analyzes the Korea Steel, Gwangju Hak-dong, and Korea Plant Service(KPS) cases, and also reviews precedents on the distinction between subcontracting and worker dispatch(such as the Hankook Tire case). Through this, it examines the operational status and limitations of the safety management systems within the multi-tier subcontracting structures of the five power generation companies and KPS. The analysis yields three findings. First, broadly recognizing the prime contractor's safety obligations causes such compliance to serve as grounds for user-employer status under the APDW, whereas narrowly limiting them fails to secure the effectiveness of safety management—forming a conflict-of-duties structure. Second, this conflict has been realized in both the judicial and administrative domains, as shown by the final acquittal in the Kim Yonggyun case and the recognition of illegal dispatch and the direct-employment corrective order in the Kim Chunghyun case. Third, while dangerous work is concentrated among subcontractors, their safety management capacity remains the weakest, revealing a structural gap. This study proposes an integrated responsibility model that evaluates the prime contractor's compliance with safety obligations separately from user-employer status under the APDW. It comprises three components: institutional codification of safe-harbor provisions, enhancement of the legal status of power-industry-specific safety management guidelines, and recognition of the safety cooperation relationship as a separate legal category.