Mayor Lee Donghwan: "Thorough Safety Net Needed for Consignment Projects Prone to Blind Spots"

Goyang Special City in Gyeonggi Province has launched an initiative to ensure "comprehensive safety with no blind spots" for its 1.08 million citizens.

Goyang Special City conducted a "Serious Industrial Accident Prevention Training" on the 25th at Baekseok Annex for about 150 public officials in charge of subcontracting, service, and consignment projects. Provided by Goyang Special City

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According to Goyang Special City on June 26, the city conducted "Serious Industrial Accident Prevention Training" on June 25 at the Baekseok Annex for about 150 public officials responsible for subcontracting, service, and consignment projects (hereinafter referred to as subcontracted projects).

The training focused on practical topics that field workers can immediately apply, including: key points of the Serious Accident Punishment Act; the definition of serious industrial accidents and real-world cases; safety and health obligations for subcontracted workers; strategies for establishing a safety and health management system; procedures for identifying and improving risk factors; and response manuals for serious industrial accidents.

Subcontracted projects refer to a form of public service outsourcing in which fieldwork and specialized tasks?such as those in welfare and environmental sectors?that are difficult for public officials to perform directly are delegated to the private sector.

Currently, Goyang City operates more than 3,000 subcontracted projects annually, including household waste collection and disposal, park maintenance, operation of water quality restoration centers, and road and facility management.

In the past, there were cases where responsibility was insufficiently recognized because these projects were not directly performed by public officials. However, since the enforcement of the Serious Accident Punishment Act in 2022, local governments have been clearly assigned the obligation to ensure the safety and health of external workers, thereby strengthening public legal responsibility.

In response, the city is actively promoting customized safety training programs tailored to job types, project characteristics, and worker profiles, in cooperation with the Goyang-Paju branch of the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency. The city provided training for public and national daycare centers in March and for city-affiliated field workers in May. The latest session marks the third field-oriented training.

Alongside the training, Goyang Special City is also working to systematically address institutional blind spots in the management of subcontracted projects.

The city is analyzing industrial accident occurrences and causes of death over the past five years to classify high-risk subcontracted projects and is developing guidelines to ensure the fulfillment of safety and health obligations in these projects.

Notably, this study will incorporate feedback from practitioners involved in 10 ongoing service projects contracted for 2025, with the aim of establishing thoroughly field-oriented guidelines.

Lee Donghwan, Mayor of Goyang Special City, stated, "The more complex the subcontracting system, the more robust the safety net needs to be. We will establish a safety and health management system that works effectively in the field to create a sustainable safe city that protects both subcontracted workers and citizens."

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