Nearly 7 in 10 migrant workers at construction sites did not receive compensation from the government for work-related accidents, the nation’s human rights watchdog said Wednesday.

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea said that foreign workers in the construction sector are exposed to poor working conditions and work accidents, setting out recommendations for the Labor Ministry to improve the situation.

According to a study on 337 foreign construction workers by IOM Migration Research & Training Center in 2015, 67.9 percent of migrant workers injured on the job did not receive the government’s industrial accident compensation.

Among them, 17.1 percent were not even unaware that they had the right to claim compensation for injuries and illnesses due to their job. 

Under the Labor Standards Act and the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act, both Korean and foreign workers are eligible to receive compensation for work-related injuries. Filing compensation applications to the Labor Ministry does not require employers’ consent.

But foreign workers find it difficult to receive compensation due to language barriers, low awareness of the scheme and employers who try to cover up accidents, local activists said.

Kim Hyung-jin from Gimhae Migrant Human Rights Center said that most foreign workers at construction sites are hired on a day-to-day basis without even signing contracts.

“So they tend to lack understanding of their rights to claim compensation for work accidents. With many workers unregistered or having no contract, the process gets more complicated especially because they cannot speak Korean well,” he said.

Migrant workers in South Korea are exposed to a high risk of work-related injuries, as a large number of them are employed in so-called “3-D” jobs -- dirty, difficult and dangerous -- mostly in the manufacturing and construction sectors shunned by locals.

According to Statistics Korea, there were 962,000 foreigners working in the country last year, with 8 percent of them, or 392,000, hired in the construction sector in 2015. Nearly half of them (49.3 percent) are ethnic Koreans from China.

Of 1,777 workers who died of workplace accidents in the country in 2016, 554 people (31.2 percent) were hired in the construction sector. Out of 88 foreign workers who died due to workplace accidents that year, 40 people (45.5 percent) were working at construction sites.

A 2014 report by the Construction & Economy Research Institute of Korea cited Korea’s aging population, lack of skilled workers, shortage of budget for workers’ safety and language barriers as reasons behind work-related accidents at construction sites.

The NHRCK also highlighted employers’ reluctance to help workers claim compensation.

“When employers want to handle work accidents on construction sites ‘quietly’ rather than report them to authorities, migrant workers who lack Korean language skills and have other restrictions mostly accept it without actively exercising their rights,” the NHRCK said.

Under the law, employers should pay more to the state-run insurance scheme in accordance with the number of industrial accidents at their work sites. They may have to pay a fine if they are caught hiring unregistered migrant workers.

The NHRCK report also found that 21.4 percent of foreign workers said they had been beaten. Among them, 85.7 percent said they had been assaulted by Koreans. Nearly 63 percent said that they had heard curse words from co-workers.

Most of their housing, or 60.6 percent, had no kitchen or cooking facilities. Some 7 percent of their residences did not have locks and 6 percent of their houses had no windows. Nearly 6 percent of their houses had no shower facilities. On average, 4.2 people were living together in one room.

The NHRCK imposed several recommendations for the Labor Ministry to enhance human rights protection for migrant workers.

It advised the ministry to revise rules on foreign workers’ food and housing, expand job training programs and education for their labor rights and increase the budget to release work safety-related material in different languages.

It also called for the ministry to revise a local act in order to make standardized hiring contracts and guarantee paid holidays, breaks and legitimate work hours for foreign workers.

By Ock Hyun-ju (laeticia.ock@heraldcorp.com)