Changes in industrial safety practices to be pushed by government

Employment and Labor Minister Lee Jung-sik announces the roadmap for improving accident safety measures at workplace at the government complex in Seoul on Wednesday. [YONHAP]

Changes in the way the industrial accident law is implemented have been proposed by the Ministry of Employment and Labor.

The goal is to shift responsibility to the companies and move away from heavy-handed, top-down oversight.

Large companies with 300 or more employees will be required to create self-risk assessment systems starting next year. Smaller companies will have to the same by 2024.

Companies that fail to prevent industrial accidents will face heavier penalties.

The self-regulatory risk assessment systems will be created jointly by management and labor.

Last year Korea’s occupational accident fatality rate was 4.3 people for every 100,000. The OECD average is 2.9. Korea ranks 34th among the 38 member countries.

The government wants to country to hit the OECD average by 2026.

Last year, about 828 workers were either injured or killed while working in Korea.

“The number of workers injured or killed due to industrial accidents in the last 20 years has declined by one-third,” Minister Lee Jung-sik said Wednesday. “However, it is still far above our economic status.”

“In recent years, the Occupational Safety and Health Act has undergone major reforms and punitive actions strengthened with the implementation of the Serious Accident Punishment Act,” the minister said. “Yet our occupation fatality rate remains stuck.”

Under the act, company owners, managers and corporations can be charged if they fail to properly implement safety practices and procedures and a casualty results from the negligence. The act applies to businesses with 50 or more employees. Those found to have violated the act can be jailed for a year or more or fined up to 1 billion won ($700,000).

The minister said it is now time to make changes that will push the private companies to develop their accident prevention systems.

The minister noted that self-regulatory preventive measures adopted in countries like Germany and the U.K. have helped keep accident rates low.

“Serious accidents in advanced countries have significantly dropped through the establishment of self-regulatory prevention systems developed jointly by management and labor by detecting danger and risk factors at job sites,” Lee said.

He said company managements only address the safety issues from the viewpoint of cost while labor only considers itself as those in need of protection instead of taking affirmative action.

The minister stressed that there is a limit to the government’s oversight and control in preventing accidents at workplaces.

“The Serious Accident Punishment Act was enacted on Jan. 27, and the number of deaths at workplaces where the legislation is applied has increased,” Minister Lee said.

In the first 10 months of this year, 224 have died from work related accidents. That’s 10 percent more than in the same period last year.

He noted that the large number of safety regulations have only encouraged companies to be focused on the paperwork to avoid punitive action instead of working on improving safety measures at workplaces.

He also noted the limit of the government’s oversight, which is mainly focused on spotting violations.

BY LEE HO-JEONG [lee.hojeong@joongang.co.kr]