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An elevated road collapse site in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, on May 27. / Photo by Reporter Song Eui-ju

Companies with 500 or more permanent employees and construction firms with annual contract values of 120 billion won or more will be required to disclose their occupational safety and health status annually, including worker fatalities. Failure to conduct workplace risk assessments will result in fines of up to 10 million won.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor announced on July 21 that an amendment to the Enforcement Decree of the Occupational Safety and Health Act containing these measures was deliberated and approved at a Cabinet meeting. This serves as a follow-up action to the Comprehensive Industrial Safety Plan announced in September last year, detailing specific criteria delegated by the amended Occupational Safety and Health Act passed in February this year.

Beginning August 1, an occupational safety and health disclosure system will take effect for businesses above a certain scale. The mandatory disclosure applies to employers with 500 or more full-time workers and construction companies with annual construction contract amounts of 120 billion won or more.

Companies must disclose fatality data not only for their direct employees but also for workers of subcontractors and business partners. Employers executing public construction projects must also include fatality records from those specific projects in their disclosures.

The government aims to encourage voluntary competition in industrial accident prevention by allowing workers, job seekers, and investors to verify corporate safety standards.

Worker participation in workplace safety and health activities will also expand. It will become mandatory to appoint individuals recommended by worker representatives among affiliated employees as honorary industrial safety inspectors. Previously, only worker representatives from workplaces required to establish an industrial safety and health committee or a labor-management council could recommend candidates, but going forward, worker representatives at all workplaces will hold recommendation rights.

However, if an honorary industrial safety inspector becomes an employer-side member of the industrial safety and health committee or qualifies as an employer under the Labor Standards Act, their appointment will be revoked.

Fine standards have also been established for employers who fail to properly conduct risk assessments. A risk assessment is a system in which an employer identifies workplace hazards and formulates corrective measures.

Failing to conduct the assessment entirely will incur fines of 5 million won for the first offense, 7 million won for the second, and 10 million won for the third and subsequent violations. Employers who fail to involve workers or worker representatives in the evaluation process or fail to share evaluation results with workers will face fines of up to 5 million won.

Failure to record and retain assessment results will draw fines ranging from 500,000 to 3 million won depending on the number of violations. The fine provisions will take effect in January next year for workplaces with 50 or more employees, and in January 2028 for those with fewer than 50 employees.

Workplaces with recurring fires, explosions, or collapse accidents will be newly designated as targets for establishing safety and health improvement plans. This applies to workplaces where failure to implement safety and health measures within the past year led to two or more industrial accidents caused by fire, explosion, or collapse. The Minister of Employment and Labor can order such workplaces to formulate and execute a safety and health improvement plan detailing accident causes and hazard mitigation measures.

"Through the safety and health disclosure system, we will transparently reveal corporate accident records and enhance the effectiveness of risk assessments and worker participation to reduce recurring industrial accidents," the Ministry said.

                                                                                                         Kim Nam-hyung