□ The Ministry of Employment and Labor and Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA) performed safety inspections with the participation of main contractors and subcontractors in 27 regions on Safety Inspection Day on Friday, November 4.

○ As there were multiple accidents leading to the deaths of subcontractors’ workers recently, KOSHA selected 'Safety inspection conducted by main contractors and subcontractors together' as the safety inspection theme for November and asked all workplaces to perform safety inspections autonomously.

○ The Safety Inspection Day has been implemented since April 4, 1996 to spread the safety culture across the country in the wake of the collapse of Seongsu Bridge in 1994 and the fire on ships docked at Busan Shipping Yard in 1995.

○ The 4th of every month has been designated as the Safety Inspection Day particularly to change the stereotype of Korean people, associating the number, 4, with bad luck. A total of 247 Safety Inspection Day events were held so far and all of these events took place throughout 18,000 workplaces, schools, and other public facilities.

□ The Ministry of Employment and Labor and KOSHA will be focusing on deploying programs to intensify the responsibility for the main contractors on occupational accident prevention until the end of this year.

○ The Ministry of Employment and Labor will be focusing on inspecting whether construction sites and manufacturers that frequently report occupational accidents are implementing safety and health measures in order to establish the climate where main contractors adhere to the regulations.

○ Also, when an occupational accident occur due to the negligence of the main contractor on safety measures, all administrative actions including the order for work suspension, special supervision, and the order to establish a safety and health diagnosis and improvement plan will be taken.

○ A campaign for the protection of subcontractor’s workers will be launched as well. The local offices of Ministry of Employment and Labor alongside the main and area offices of KOSHA will participate in deploying the campaign and public relations for promoting safety and health activities by main contractors and subcontractors.

- For this, the theme for November's Safety Inspection Day was set as 'Safety inspection conducted by main contractors and subcontractors together' and safety inspections were performed across the country.

□ The public safety inspection for November took place at the new construction site for the Second Beer Factory of Lotte Liquor located in Chungju, Chungcheongbuk-do.

○ President of KOSHA, Director of Daejeon Branch of Ministry of Employment and Labor, Special Assistant to the Provincial Government of Chungcheongbuk-do, and 300 others including the officials and workers from main contractors and subcontractors attended this event.

○ Main contractors and subcontractors resolved to inspect whether there are measures to prevent fall accidents and measures to prevent fire and explosion accidents and whether safe operating procedures are observed in the workplace in order to reduce accidents down to none.

□ "There are no main contractors and subcontractors when it comes to occupational accident prevention," said President Young Soon Lee, "I hope that the safety culture of mutual cooperation and benefit takes root through the policy of intensifying main contractors’ responsibility for occupational accident prevention currently enforced by the government."

(End).