Lee Jae-myung: "To Prevent a Second Icheon Logistics Accident, Labor Police Must Be Greatly Expanded"

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Lee Jae-myung, Governor of Gyeonggi Province, once again emphasized the expansion of labor police and securing labor police authority for local governments to prevent major industrial accidents.

At the 'Industrial Accident Prevention Labor and Expert Roundtable' held on the 12th at the Gyeonggi Provincial Government Situation Room in Suwon, Governor Lee said, "The Icheon logistics warehouse fire was a tragedy caused by not properly following safety regulations for profit," and proposed 'expansion of labor police' and 'securing labor police authority for local governments' as fundamental measures to prevent industrial accidents.

He added, "The fundamental measure to prevent repeated industrial accidents is to ensure that those who commit illegal acts cannot profit at all," and argued, "Strict criminal liability and punitive damages must be imposed to prevent the same mistakes from happening again."

He also emphasized, "The problem is the lack of personnel to supervise whether safety-related regulations are properly followed at the site," and said, "Labor police should be expanded to properly supervise this, and their authority should be shared with local governments."

He further explained, "This does not mean handing over supervisory authority entirely to local governments, but that the central government sets the regulations and standards, and both the central and local governments share the authority to monitor whether these standards are properly followed."

This roundtable was organized to explore measures that can be promoted at the local government level to prevent industrial accidents in construction and industrial sites, such as the Icheon logistics warehouse fire that occurred on the 29th of last month, with experts from various fields.

About 20 related persons attended, including Lee Sang-jin, Vice Chairman of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), Hwang Byung-kwan, Vice Chairman of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), Park Seok-woon, Co-representative of the Korean Progressive Alliance, Lim Sang-hyuk, Director of Green Hospital, and lawyer Lee Yong-woo.

The attendees expressed agreement with Governor Lee’s proposal to share labor police authority with local governments.

Additionally, they recommended measures such as business suspension for workplaces with serious accidents, enactment of a Serious Accident Corporate Punishment Act, fulfillment of obligations by local governments as employers, guaranteed participation of union-recommended experts in serious accident investigations, operation of a Gyeonggi Province-style Honorary Industrial Safety Inspector system, strengthening safety and health management tasks at regional building safety centers, and enhanced support for industrial accident workers, urging active interest and support at the Gyeonggi Province level.

During the 7th elected term, Gyeonggi Province is implementing the 'Comprehensive Plan for Industrial Accident Prevention in Gyeonggi Province' with the goal of reducing industrial accident fatalities at workplaces within the province by 50%.

As part of this, initiatives such as operating labor safety keepers, joint emergency safety inspections by public and private sectors, establishing regional building safety centers, building a construction safety information system, industrial accident prevention education, industrial safety education for prospective workers, and expanding incentives for excellent companies in accident prevention are underway.

In particular, to achieve fundamental improvements, a 'Labor Safety Council' involving various sectors is operated to review accident prevention measures, and based on the activities of labor safety keepers, a 'Master Plan for Industrial Accident Prevention' applicable to industrial sites is being developed.

Earlier, on the 1st, Governor Lee proposed measures via SNS, stating, "We must change the culture that values money over human lives," and suggested strict criminal liability and punitive damages for casualties caused by non-compliance with safety regulations, renaming labor inspectors as labor police, increasing labor police personnel, and sharing labor police authority with local governments.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.