As record-breaking heatwaves persist, the recent surge in the keyword 'foreigner' on search engines is tied to heartbreaking tragedies on farms. On August 8, a seasonal worker from Laos in his 30s was found dead in a field in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province. The temperature at the time was nearing 36°C (96.8°F). Previously, foreign workers in Haenam, Jeonnam, and Hongseong, Chungnam, also lost their lives to heat-related illnesses, bringing their extreme working conditions to public attention.

As these tragedies repeated, the government moved quickly. On August 9, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety visited a farm in Yesan-gun, Chungnam, to urgently inspect heatstroke prevention measures for foreign seasonal workers. They checked whether basic heat safety protocols—water, shade, and rest—were being followed and distributed safety manuals translated into 18 languages to bridge the language gap. The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the Ministry of Employment and Labor also designated the period until mid-August as a special management period for on-site inspections.

However, civil society and labor groups point out that simple on-site inspections or distributing safety guides are insufficient for a fundamental solution. Foreign workers, especially those here on seasonal or employment permit visas, face inherent structural vulnerabilities, as their visa status is entirely dependent on their employers. This makes it effectively impossible for them to decide to stop working or request a break, no matter how hot it gets.

While it is said that everyone is equal in the face of a natural disaster like a heatwave, those paying the harshest price are the foreign workers filling the labor gaps in our rural areas. We must watch to see if these intensive inspections and the special management period will lead to the establishment of a practical safety net befitting the era of the climate crisis, rather than remaining a one-time measure.

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