Vice Minister Park Hwa-jin Urges "20% Reduction" to All Local Offices and Regional Headquarters of the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency
[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok] Ahead of the enforcement of the Serious Accident Punishment Act scheduled for January next year, the government convened safety executives from major construction companies and held an 'Industrial Accident Reduction Meeting' with local offices on the 9th. Park Hwajin, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Employment and Labor, instructed at the meeting, "All local offices and regional headquarters of the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency must set 'reducing industrial accident fatalities by more than 20%' as their top priority goal and devote all efforts to achieving it." The meeting was attended by the heads of eight regional offices including the Seoul Regional Employment and Labor Office and eight regional directors of the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency. Earlier, on the 7th, the Ministry of Employment and Labor held a meeting with safety department heads from the top 10 domestic construction companies, including Samsung C&T, to discuss reducing industrial accidents.
The Ministry of Employment and Labor's goal is to reduce the number of industrial accident fatalities from 882 last year to 705 or fewer this year. Vice Minister Park urged, "To achieve this goal, strengthen collaboration between local offices of the Ministry and frontline institutions of the Agency to closely supervise and manage high-risk workplaces where fatal accidents occur." The high-risk workplaces mentioned by Vice Minister Park refer to approximately 110,000 construction sites with a total project cost between 100 million and less than 10 billion KRW, and about 30,000 manufacturing sites with fewer than 20 employees that operate machinery with entrapment risks such as conveyors.
Vice Minister Park emphasized, "The Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency must properly operate a triple inspection and supervision system, where the Agency conducts patrol inspections (unannounced safety checks) to guide and inspect the safety management level on site, the Ministry strictly enforces administrative and judicial actions against legal violations, and re-inspections confirm that corrective measures are fully implemented." He also mentioned, "Ensure thorough implementation of the focused inspection guidelines on the three major safety measures to prevent falls and entrapment accidents, which have been occurring continuously recently." The proportion of fall and entrapment accidents among all industrial accidents was 50.3% in 2018, 53% in 2019, 48.3% last year, and a provisional 57.6% up to March this year.
The Ministry and the Agency plan to increase the number of patrol cars from 108 last year to 404 this year. Regarding this, Vice Minister Park urged, "As the expansion of patrol cars will be completed this month, do your best to patrol and inspect every corner of hazardous sites to foster a culture of fatal accident prevention on site."
Vice Minister Park stated, "It is necessary to actively utilize safety and health diagnosis orders and safety and health improvement plan establishment orders stipulated in the Industrial Safety and Health Act to ensure that workplaces establish safety and health management systems." Through this, specialized institutions can comprehensively assess the status of safety and health management and implement comprehensive improvement plans for industrial accident prevention.
A Ministry of Employment and Labor official said, "Going forward, the Ministry plans to continuously monitor progress through monthly inspection meetings involving local offices and regional headquarters of the Agency."
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