Industrial Safety? Viewing with a "Hawk's Eye" from the Public's Perspective... Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency Holds Ombudsman Meeting

On the 15th, Public Voices Reflected in Industrial Accident Prevention at 'KOSHA Ombudsman'

On the 15th, the Safety and Health Corporation Ombudsman meeting is being held at the Chungnam Northern Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] The Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA) held an ombudsman meeting on the 15th at the Chungnam Northern Chamber of Commerce and Industry to evaluate and improve industrial accident prevention projects from the public’s perspective.

Through three meetings this year, a total of 13 improvement measures were proposed across seven industrial accident prevention projects of the agency.

In this meeting, time was taken to comprehensively review and evaluate the improvement measures implemented so far.

The seven projects include special planned inspections, safety investment innovation projects, health management cards, performance testing of certified products, the Clean Project, hazardous risk prevention plans for the construction industry, and evaluations of private accident prevention organizations.

Among the improvement measures, following the ombudsman’s recommendation that the procedures and standards of the ‘Clean Project,’ which supports costs to safely improve hazardous equipment and work environments in small-scale workplaces, are complicated, the agency decided to remove unnecessary standards.

Additionally, similar and overlapping standards were consolidated from 58 to 35, and the submission documents required from workplaces were simplified to enhance customer convenience.

The ombudsman also recommended strengthening safety monitoring by identifying changes in plans or timing of hazardous work during construction at sites that submitted hazardous risk prevention plans.

The hazardous risk prevention plan is a system that reviews and confirms safety for workplaces requiring hazardous or risky work of a certain scale, such as construction of buildings over 31 meters in height, in accordance with the Industrial Safety and Health Act.

KOSHA designated dedicated monitoring personnel to regularly check safety and linked poor-performing sites to supervision by the Ministry of Employment and Labor to raise safety levels at the sites.

The agency has been operating the ombudsman system since 2010. Four ombudsmen, including academics and external private experts related to industrial accident prevention, are appointed to identify and improve unreasonable systems, practices, and work processes within the agency.

Cho Byung-gi, Standing Auditor of KOSHA, said, “We will evaluate industrial accident prevention projects from the public’s perspective and improve them by reflecting the voices of the people,” adding, “We plan to continuously expand the authority and role of the KOSHA ombudsman.”

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