Yangju City and Hanbochong Begin Full-Scale Establishment of Serious Accident Response System

Yangju City in Gyeonggi Province held a meeting with participating business owners on the 19th to strengthen the safety and health management system of small-scale workplaces, and, together with the Korea Federation of Health and Safety Organizations (Hanbochong), is beginning to establish a response system for serious accidents in earnest.

Yangju City held a meeting with participating business owners on the 19th to strengthen the safety and health management system of small-scale workplaces. Photo by Yangju City

The city signed a business agreement with Hanbochong in May and has been promoting the "Support Project for Establishing a Serious Accident Response System, Including Fire Damage Prevention." This meeting was organized to share the direction of the project and to listen to feedback from the field.

The core of this project is the "Joint Safety Manager System." Under this system, a single professional safety manager visits multiple small-scale workplaces to support safety inspections and management, thereby addressing management gaps in workplaces lacking sufficient personnel and resources. Currently, five companies are receiving support: Jisim L&C, Gamdong Clean Cooperative, Withplus Co., Ltd., Todoplay Co., Ltd., and Toplighting Co., Ltd.

With the Serious Accident Punishment Act being fully applied to workplaces with fewer than 50 employees since January this year, all businesses are now required to establish a safety management system. In particular, the major fire accident at a Hwaseong factory in June, which resulted in 23 deaths, has once again highlighted the fire risks and the need for systematic management in small-scale workplaces.

Hanbochong plans to use its nationwide network of 118 joint safety managers to spread exemplary cases of serious accident prevention throughout the Gyeonggi region.

An official from Yangju City stated, "Our goal is to support social economy enterprises so that they can independently operate their own safety and health management systems," adding, "We will actively reflect on-site feedback to establish a sustainable safety management system."

The city plans to further develop this project as a public-private partnership safety management model and continue its support so that every workplace in the region can create a safe working environment.

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