”Koreans leave work at 1 o'clock”... Foreign worker in his 20s dies of heat stroke

A foreign worker in his 20s who arrived to work for the first time on the hottest day in history died. While the Korean workers were working reduced hours, the foreign workers, including the one who died, were not.
At around 5:30 pm on the 7th of this month, a 23-year-old Vietnamese worker was working at an apartment construction site in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province, South Korea.
Worker A was found not breathing. He had gone to the bathroom just after finishing work at 4pm and had not returned.
Mr. A was found dead, sitting with his back against the wall, by a colleague.
At the time, his body temperature had reached 40.2 degrees Celsius. Fire department officials believe he collapsed due to heat stroke. When the body temperature approaches 40 degrees Celsius due to heat stroke, the risk of fainting increases greatly.
Temperatures above 41 degrees can damage organs such as the brain and heart, leading to death. On the day of the accident, the daytime temperature in Gumi rose to 38.3 degrees, the highest on record.
It is reported that many Korean workers had already left work at the time of his death, when Mr. A, who had begun work at 8:30 a.m. on his first day of work, died.
During periods of extreme heat, such as when heatwave warnings were issued, workers would adjust their working hours to arrive at work at 6 a.m. and leave at 1 p.m., but unregistered foreign workers like Mr. A
They continued to work without being able to make such demands. The National Construction Workers Union of the Korean Democratic Trade Union (KTU) Daegu/Gyeongbuk Construction Branch held a protest in front of the Daegu Regional Employment and Labor Office on the 9th.
The branch held a press conference and demanded that the truth about Mr. A's death be investigated and that measures to prevent recurrence be established. The branch said, "Korean workers were guaranteed rest while foreign workers were allowed to work as usual.
"There are suspicions that this is the case," he said, claiming that "the practice of construction companies neglecting safety in order to cut costs and shorten construction time led to this disaster."
If an employed worker or foreign worker dies from heatstroke, the employer may be held criminally liable under the Serious Accident Punishment Act, etc.
The labor authorities may issue a work suspension order to the business and investigate whether there were any violations of the Industrial Safety and Health Act or the Major Accident Act, such as whether safety education on heat stroke prevention was properly implemented.
The police are planning to perform an autopsy to determine the exact cause of Mr. A's death. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Employment and Labor has announced that workers are required to take a break of at least 20 minutes every two hours when the perceived temperature is 33 degrees or higher.
The government had been pushing for a proposal to make the tax cuts mandatory, but progress has stalled due to the Regulatory Reform Committee's recommendation to reconsider the matter, and the government recently decided to request a reexamination.