Korea Family marks sad birthday of son lost in work-related subway accident

Korea Family marks sad birthday of son lost in work-related subway accident
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/746005.html
Posted on : May.30,2016 17:43 KSTModified on : May.30,2016 17:43 KST

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The contents of the backpack carried by a 19-year-old repair worker surnamed Kim who was crushed between a subway train and a sliding door on the platform, including tools and ramen instant noodles. (provided by Kim’s family)
19-year-old was part of small team tasked with repairing sliding doors at 49 subway stations
“Today is my son’s birthday. My family was supposed to get together yesterday to celebrate it,” the man said before stopping, unable to go on. Surnamed Kim, the 50-year-old met the Hankyoreh at the Konkuk University Medical Center on May 29, where his son’s body is currently resting.
On the afternoon of May 28, the day before, Kim‘s 19-year-old son was crushed between a subway train and a sliding door on the platform. The younger Kim had been working on a malfunctioning sliding door at Guui Subway Station in Seoul and had been unable to get out of the way when the train neared the platform.
Last October, during his third year of high school, the younger Kim got a job at Eunseong PSD, a company that provides maintenance and repairs for the sliding doors at subway stations. He had been upset about how long it had taken to find work, his father recalled. “My son was so happy when he got that job,” he said.
But after Kim started his new job, every day at work was exhausting. Eunseong PSD is a subcontractor for Seoul Metro (the company that operates lines 1 through 4 of the Seoul subway system), and it handles maintenance and repairs for sliding doors in 97 of the 121 Seoul Metro stations in which such doors have been installed.
On the job, Kim belonged to a team of fewer than 10 workers who were reportedly responsible for 49 stations. “My son said there weren’t enough workers and there were always more places to repair so he wouldn‘t even have time to eat,” his grieving mother said.
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Emergency crews work to save a 19-year-old repair workers surnamed Kim who died when he was crushed between a subway train and a sliding door on the platform at Guui Station in Seoul, May 28. (provided by Gwangjin Fire Station) 　
At the time of the accident, Kim’s backpack contained work tools including a wrench, a wire cutter, screwdriver, writing supplies, a stainless steel spoon, disposable wooden chopsticks and a cup of instant ramen.
“My son said he would often order some food only to get a call and not be able to eat it. It looks like he brought some ramen with him because he thought he might have to skip his meal on the day of the accident, too,” Kim’s father said.
According to sources at the company and in the labor union, at the time of the accident, the six workers in the work unit to which Kim was assigned were in charge of repairing sliding doors at 49 subway stations.
The company’s system was for two of the workers to wait at the office - one monitor the situation and another as a backup - and for the other four to wait inside the subway until they were sent out on a work call. Seoul Metro explained that the sliding doors malfunction 30 times a day on average, and sometimes as many as 40 or 50 times.
“The glitches tend to happen when there are a lot of people on the subway, so there aren’t always enough workers. That was the situation when the accident happened,” said a source at the company.
Because of the shortage of workers, safety regulations were not being followed.
In Jan. 2013, an employee with the same company was crushed by a subway train while inspecting a sliding door at Seongsu Station on subway line 2 in the Seongdong District of Seoul. After this fatal accident, Seoul Metro created safety regulations stating that employees who were working on or inspecting the tracks had to work in two-person teams. But Kim was inspecting the sliding door on his own when disaster struck.
During a press briefing, Seoul Metro claimed that Kim had been negligent on the job. “When doing work on the platform, technicians are supposed to notify the electronic operations room and the station office about their work, but Kim omitted this step,” the company said.
The company explained that employees of repair companies that are dispatched to the site of a malfunction are supposed to inform the station office of the electronic operations room that they are beginning work, but that Kim had failed to do this.
There were three subway employees at Guui Station at the time of the accident, but for about an hour they were in the dark about the sliding door glitch and the accident. Needless to say, the employees were unable to take any safety measures such as ensuring that the work was being done by a two-person team.
The police, the Eastern Seoul District Office of the Ministry of Employment and Labor and the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency are planning to conduct a joint investment into the accident.
Even though Kim was off duty on May 23, he still attended a rally in front of the main office of Seoul Metro in the Seocho District of Seoul demanding that the subsidiary hire on all of its subcontractor workers, Kim’s mother said with tears in her eyes.
“My son put up with everything at work with the one hope that he would become the employee of a public company. When my son gave some pocket money to his younger sibling because it was payday as he was going off to work, I had no idea it was the last time I would see him,” Kim’s mother said.
By Lee Jae-uk and Bang Jun-hon, staff reporters