"Reduce Safety Training Time"... KCCI Proposes Improvement of 120 Safety and Environmental Regulations

"Must Change to Consider Industry Characteristics and On-Site Conditions"

The Korea Employers Federation has requested the government to improve 120 unrealistic safety, health, and environmental regulations that do not consider the characteristics of industries and on-site conditions. They also insist that the safety and health education hours should be reduced without going through the lifting review committee when lifting work stoppages.

On the 5th, the Federation announced that it had identified a total of 120 regulatory improvement tasks in the fields of safety, health, and environment (76 for industrial safety, 19 for industrial health, and 25 for environment) and submitted them to related ministries such as the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the Ministry of Environment, and the Office for Government Policy Coordination.

The Federation emphasized first that the procedure for holding a lifting review committee composed of external experts should be eliminated to allow for a quicker lifting of work stoppage periods. This is because prolonged work stoppages can disrupt the supply chain of the relevant industry and cause damage to the entire sector. According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the average period taken to lift work stoppages over the past three years was 40.5 days. The Federation requested that the inspector who issued the work stoppage order be allowed to make the lifting decision directly.

They also argued that the Process Safety Management (PSM) system should be applied more flexibly to production equipment within advanced industry factories (cleanrooms) such as semiconductor and display plants. Although these devices have already obtained international safety certification (SEMI), domestic authorities do not recognize this, resulting in paperwork amounting to 3,600 sheets per case and the preparation of 47 annual reports when constructing a single factory building, which wastes time.

The Federation stressed the need to reduce safety education hours as well. They explained, "For maintenance and repair workers, most tasks fall under special education requirements, with education hours reaching up to 88 hours," adding, "It is practically impossible to conduct all the training that takes about two weeks."

Additionally, they urged improvements to regulations that cause confusion and duplicate work between primary and subcontractors regarding risk assessments, regulations on handling heavy materials, and ambiguous definitions of confined spaces.

Major Safety, Health, and Environmental Regulations Proposed for Improvement by the Korea Employers Federation

Lim Woo-taek, head of the Safety and Health Division at the Federation, expressed concern, saying, "If safety, health, and environmental regulations that affect the entire industry are not aligned with on-site conditions or are excessive, it will not only be difficult to achieve the purpose of protecting workers but also make it harder for companies to comply with laws, which could hinder accident prevention. Ultimately, there is a risk of undermining the growth potential of the national economy."

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