“Safety Is the Highest Value” ... South Chungcheong Province Joins Hands with Frontline Cities, Counties and Workplaces to Prevent Serious Accidents

[Financial News, Hongseong = Kim Won-jun] South Chungcheong Province has joined hands with frontline cities and counties and businesses to prevent serious industrial accidents.
 On the 19th, South Chungcheong Province held the “Proclamation Ceremony for the Prevention of Serious Industrial Accidents and the Expansion of Safe Workplaces” at Splas Resom in Deoksan, Yesan, and signed an agreement to take action with eight cities and counties and 100 workplaces. The aim is to create “happy workplaces that are safe and offer a place to rest.”
 The ceremony was organized to put this year’s joint labor-management-civil society-government declaration in South Chungcheong into practice and spread a culture of safety throughout industrial workplaces. About 250 people attended, including South Chungcheong Governor Park Su-hyeon; Provincial Council Speaker Cho Cheol-gi; Ryu Hyeon-cheol, head of the Occupational Safety and Health Headquarters at the Ministry of Employment and Labor; Kim Hyeon-jung, president of the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency; officials from the eight cities and counties of Cheonan, Asan, Seosan, Boryeong, Nonsan, Dangjin, Seocheon and Hongseong; and labor and management representatives from 100 workplaces. The event featured a special lecture, the proclamation ceremony and the signing of the action agreement, in that order.

 The agreement signed by South Chungcheong Province, eight cities and counties, and 100 workplaces includes raising awareness of the priority of life and safety and eliminating hazards at industrial sites; establishing an AI-based occupational safety and health management system; and cooperating on safety consulting and supplies for small workplaces. The parties also agreed to work together to build safer working environments in practice by conducting prevention-focused inspections, guaranteeing safety rights, managing harmful and hazardous factors in workplaces, and expanding workers’ right to stop work.

 South Chungcheong Province will also strengthen support for preventing industrial accidents. Starting next year, it will increase preventive guidance and inspections at small hazardous workplaces and construction sites through local labor inspectors. Using the Ministry of Employment and Labor’s “Public Contest Project to Help Eliminate Blind Spots in Local Serious Accident Prevention,” the province plans to focus on preventing explosions, fires and falls during livestock barn roof renovation work.
 The province will expand safety consulting for small workplaces and improve vulnerable working conditions through safety measures for extreme cold and heat, support for safety supplies, and expanded operation of rest shelters. The Labor Safety and Health Center, the first in the country to be operated by a local government, supports accident prevention at small workplaces and for vulnerable workers. The province also plans to increase the number of local honorary industrial safety inspectors and actively inform workers of their right to stop work, thereby preventing workplace hazards in advance.
 Labor groups and experts say that blind spots in serious accident prevention are concentrated in small workplaces with fewer than 50 regular employees and at construction sites. Small businesses with limited staff and budgets often find it difficult to appoint a dedicated safety manager, and risks are frequently passed down through subcontracting and sub-subcontracting arrangements. As a result, calls are growing for local governments to provide close-to-the-ground support, since oversight by the central government alone has its limits.

 “Safety is the highest value that can never be compromised and the starting point for respect for labor,” Governor Park said. “South Chungcheong, which has embraced the sacrifice of the late Kim Yong-gyun, was the region that awakened South Korea to the importance of safe workplaces. The ‘Kim Yong-gyun Act,’ which prevents the outsourcing of risks and strengthens the responsibility of prime contractors, was born from his sacrifice.” He went on to stress that “safety blind spots that cannot be addressed by systems and regulations alone must be filled by improving workplace culture and awareness” and that “safety must be established as both an inherent right and a culture.” He urged business leaders to see safety as the surest investment, not a cost, and workers to follow safety rules rigorously at their workplaces.
 Governor Park concluded, “Every year, around 50 workers in the province have been unable to return home because of industrial accidents.” He said, “Over the next four years, South Chungcheong will focus the full capacity of the provincial government on protecting residents’ safety and lives, including by cutting the number of workers injured in work-related accidents and the number of accidental deaths by 50%.”

[email protected] Kim Won-jun Reporter