Ministry of Employment and Labor safety chief urges companies to move beyond compliance to competence

By Park Hye-won, The Herald Business

Ryu Hyeon-cheol, head of the Ministry of Employment and Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Bureau, said Wednesday the government would intervene directly at industrial sites to prevent serious workplace accidents before they occur.

Ryu, whose position carries vice-ministerial rank, made the remarks at the June invited lecture of the Future Leaders Forum, co-hosted by The Herald Business and law firm Daeryuk Aju at The Plaza Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul. He said the Serious Accidents Punishment Act was designed to deter accidents through the threat of punishment, but that under the current legal framework, consequences only materialize after a case winds through first, second and third appeals — far too late to be preventive.

Ryu said companies should be held responsible for known hazards, but that identifying blind spots in industrial safety is the government's job. "We will work to determine whether AI-driven management systems are creating new problems, whether industries adapting to environmental change face unaddressed risks, and how to narrow safety gaps between men and women, and between migrant and resident workers," he said.

He added, however, that building public trust in government is also essential. "The right to stop work is the most fundamental safety right on the shop floor, yet companies treat it as an enormous burden," he said. "How flexibly that right is exercised ultimately depends on social trust. Without trust in the administrative authorities, it simply cannot be enforced."

Ryu argued that companies must go beyond mere legal compliance and take a more proactive approach to managing their worksites. "Following only the letter of the law is what we call compliance — and for a long time, doing just that was considered fulfilling one's full responsibility," he said. "But the time has come to move toward competence."

He elaborated that competence means managing safety based on actual, immediate risks — not simply checking regulatory boxes. "The right to life does not realize itself. CEOs and CSOs must think about occupational safety around the clock, and safety and health managers on the ground must anticipate and manage risks by being out there in person," he said.

Ryu also said the government itself must play a role in building a sound industrial safety framework. "Labor and management must become the owners of self-regulation, and the government must be part of that process," he said. "At the government level, we need to assess which sectors are most urgent and how to allocate limited resources to where labor conditions are most pressing. With the age of AI upon us, data-driven policy is also critical."

For companies, Ryu emphasized "risk communication" as the key to effective safety management. "For a company to truly internalize a safety management system, risk communication must flow between workers and managers, and between specialists and administrators," he said. "Government administrative capacity cannot expand indefinitely, so companies must be empowered to regulate themselves."

He added that a company cleared of legal wrongdoing may still face public condemnation if it failed to communicate adequately on safety and health matters.

Ryu also referenced the government's comprehensive labor safety plan, announced in September last year, saying its core aim is to guarantee workers' right to information — most notably by ensuring they can participate in risk assessments. "The principle is that the process of designing a safety and health system should be open by default, and that those responsible for the outcomes should be held firmly accountable," he said.