With the exception of Japan, South Korea is the only country that occupational accidents are operated by dual legal frames as the Labor Standard Act and the Industrial Accident Compensation Act(this "the IACI Act").
According to the Labor Standard Act enacted since 1953, an employer shall assume responsibility to compensate for occupational accidents happening to his employee(s). And in case an employer shall be in default as to performing any of its obligations per this Act, it places a criminal liability on him.
On the other hand, the IACI Act, enacted since 1963, has been operated in the form of a social insurance for the purpose of protecting workers and their labors based on their employers' common liability.
This study amis at enhancing workers' labor spirit by reconstructing the roles and functions of the IACI Act under an understanding that, although the act has gradually evolved itself to accommodate a change in labor environment and a economic development for the past 40 years, it's still short of reflecting a variety of employments newly and repeatedly produced in this modernized society of ours.
First, a method to solve problems facing the current compensation insurance program in harmony with constitutional principles will be exploited on a basis of "compulsion" and "security", which are the basic principles of a social insurance.
It means that a practically-harmonious reconstruction of industrial accident compensation insurance relationships involving employers and their employees would realize a balanced compensation insurance program to us through application of a principle of "proportional restriction" under which an employer, deemed to experience a violation of his property right owing to his due payments(premiums), shall be exempted from a civil indemnity for his injured employees with a right to claim for benefits, whose civil claims for damages shall be restricted.
Secondly, it's recommended that such workers as are engaged in public service sectors or private(nongovernmental) schools with their own social coverage pursuant to other related laws should be denied coverage from the IACI Act, in accordance with the doctrine of "alternative coverage", and that small businesses that can't afford to pay their due premiums be exempted from them, under the doctrine of "negative restriction".
Based on such constitutional theory, this study will focus on reconstructing the roles and functions of the IACI Act. From a methodological aspect, there are two approaches: an extension of external coverage, and that of internal coverage.
The former includes the following considerations:
(ⅰ) to flexibly interpret the concept of "employee" or "worker";
(ⅱ) to accommodate workers engaged in special sectors into the social program;
(ⅲ) to protect such home-based workers as portfolio worker or tele workers; and
(ⅳ) to protect volunteer workers.
Issues for the latter are as follows:
(ⅰ) to expand the extent to which a death from overwork can be acknowledged or recognized as;
⒡ to protect commuting injuries; and
⒢ to adjust an alternative function of a civil claim for damages.
In conclusion, the essence of the IACI Act lies in (a) a compensatory function of recovering an economic standing of injured workers; (b) a livelihood function of recovering dignity as a human being; and (c) a labor function of specifying and protecting the forgoing functions as working conditions.
Accordingly, to be successful in reconstructing the roles and functions of the IACI Act, a pursuit of enhancing labor spirit through determinedly embedding the compensatory function and the livelihood function into the act to institutionally specifying those functions should be followed, so that the social program can protect injured workers against commuting injuries and occupational accidents happening during the labor relations under the doctrine of " liability".