Youngpoong Co., Ltd.'s Seokpo Smelter will significantly strengthen safety and health management under the guidance of the Daegu Regional Employment and Labor Office in response to the recent consecutive industrial accidents.
Following the guidance of the Daegu Employment and Labor Office, the Seokpo Smelter announced on the 29th that it has prepared its own "Special Management Plan to Eradicate Industrial Accident Fatalities," and will extensively reinforce its safety management system, budget, and organization, while immediately improving equipment and work methods to prevent recurrence of accidents.
To this end, a meeting on measures to prevent recurrence of accidents was held recently at the smelter, hosted by the Daegu Employment and Labor Office (Commissioner Kim Gyu-seok), with the participation of related organizations including the Yeongju Branch of the Daegu Labor Office (Branch Chief Im Dae-yeol), the Gyeongbuk Regional Headquarters of the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (Head Jang Gyeong-bu), Youngpoong headquarters (CEO Park Young-min), and Seokpo Smelter (Director Bae Sang-yoon). The meeting deeply discussed special management plans to prevent accident recurrence and ensure fundamental safety.
The purpose was to reassess the current level of the key practical directions for safety and health management centered on supervisors, which the Daegu Employment and Labor Office has been continuously promoting, and to break the chain of industrial accident occurrences by strengthening the operational effectiveness of the safety and health management system on site.
At the meeting, the smelter explained the "Accident Recurrence Prevention Measures Based on a Systematic Safety Management System," and the Daegu Employment and Labor Office presented the "Special Management Plan to Eradicate Industrial Accident Fatalities Related to the Smelter."
As a special management plan to eradicate industrial accident fatalities, the Daegu Employment and Labor Office recommended that the smelter improve deficiencies such as identifying hazardous and risky factors in all processes and tasks including subcontractors, raising awareness of hazards and risks, and communicating safety rules, following the three-step practice of supervisor-centered safety and health management. It also advised strengthening the confirmation and evaluation of the roles and performance of on-site supervisors.
Specific practical measures include forming a separate inspection team, verifying weekly self-inspection results of the workplace, conducting focused guidance on deficiencies, identifying hazardous and risky factors of subcontractors, enhancing educational support, investing in improvements of aging facilities and equipment, deploying additional safety monitors during irregular work, and establishing a regular evaluation system for supervisors, urging early establishment of these measures on site.
Accordingly, Seokpo Smelter decided to implement practical on-site tasks such as improving equipment and process management in accident-prone processes, strengthening safety management organization and manpower, additional investment and budget reflection related to safety management budget execution, self-inspection and level evaluation of supervisor-centered safety and health management, and strengthening education and training measures.
On the afternoon of the 28th, Seokpo Smelter held a "Life Keeper Launch Ceremony" at the Seokpo Happiness Sharing Center, attended by about 150 people including all executives, supervisors of each process, foremen, construction and subcontractor heads, and decided to introduce and fully operate the "Life Keeper" (Safety Manager) system.
The "Life Keeper" acts as a "safety assistant" who participates in the "Pre-Work Safety Meeting (Tool Box Meeting)" activities at all work sites, identifies hazardous and risky factors on site, and guides and supervises compliance with essential safety rules to help ensure work is conducted in a safe environment.
There are a total of 238 "Life Keepers," with 8 dedicated personnel newly added to the safety management team, 118 designated from each department, and 112 from subcontractors and construction companies. They perform on-site safety and health management tasks such as confirming the implementation of TBM, guiding and educating on safety and health measures.
Kim Gyu-seok, Commissioner of the Daegu Employment and Labor Office, urged, "I ask the company's management and staff to take active interest and efforts so that the supervisor-centered safety and health management system, which is key to preventing industrial accident fatalities, actually functions at the work sites."
Bae Sang-yoon, Director of Youngpoong Seokpo Smelter, emphasized, "We will invest all available resources and budgets to ensure that the supervisor-centered safety and health management execution system suitable for the workplace conditions is established early," and said, "We will do our best to create a safe workplace."
At Seokpo Smelter, following the death of a subcontractor worker due to toxic gas poisoning on December 6 last year, another subcontractor worker was injured and died after being struck by a gypsum block that fell from a wall during equipment cleaning work on the 8th.
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