Labor Ministry targets repeat industrial accidents, heat and suffocation risks

The Ministry of Employment and Labor is stepping up workplace safety management alongside related ministries to reduce recurring industrial accidents and prevent heat-related incidents and suffocation deaths during the summer. In the second half of the year, the ministry plans to accelerate structural reform by pursuing amendments to the Occupational Safety and Health Act and other follow-up measures.

The ministry convened a pan-government labor safety council meeting Tuesday at the Government Seoul Complex with officials from related ministries to review progress on its comprehensive labor safety plan. The meeting was called amid a recent string of fatal workplace accidents to discuss concrete steps to eliminate recurring incidents.

The government will expand nationwide inspections and oversight of workplaces with records of repeated accidents — particularly entrapment incidents common in manufacturing. It also plans to work with the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy to roll out smart safety equipment and help businesses build occupational safety management systems, with the goal of making the rule "cutting power saves lives" standard practice on the ground.

The government is also reinforcing its response to summer heat. Inspections will focus on industries with heavy outdoor work — including construction, aviation, logistics and distribution, agriculture and livestock, shipbuilding and forestry — to check compliance with the five basic heat-safety rules and the guidelines on suspending work by heat-alert level. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries will also participate in on-site management.

Preventive efforts will be strengthened for confined spaces at heightened suffocation risk as temperatures rise, including manholes, livestock facilities, underground utility tunnels and ship interiors. Local governments will be required to verify oxygen levels and ventilation before work begins at such sites, while the Ministry of Interior and Safety, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Korea Meteorological Administration will support related management and public awareness campaigns.

Local governments and the Ministry of Interior and Safety plan to use the central-local cooperation framework to manage outdoor worker safety during the summer heat, operate cooling shelters and promote guidelines for preventing suffocation accidents.

"We will manage every worksite without gaps, backed by inter-agency cooperation, in a manner befitting a government that protects people's lives," Minister of Employment and Labor Kim Young-hoon said. "We will concentrate all our efforts on putting a definitive end to recurring accidents."

Kim added that the ministry would "move swiftly in the second half to implement follow-up measures under the comprehensive labor safety plan — including amendments to the Occupational Safety and Health Act — so that on-the-ground efforts to reduce industrial accidents can translate into lasting structural change."