From August, 'Safety and Health Disclosure' Mandatory for Workplaces with 500 or More Employees

Fines of Up to KRW 10 Million for Failure to Conduct Risk Assessments

The government is strengthening industrial accident prevention systems by making it mandatory for companies of a certain scale or larger to publicly disclose their occupational safety and health status, and by introducing new standards for fines against employers who do not conduct risk assessments.

On July 21, the Ministry of Employment and Labor announced that the Cabinet had deliberated and passed a revision to the Enforcement Decree of the Occupational Safety and Health Act containing these provisions. This amendment is a follow-up to the revised Occupational Safety and Health Act that was amended in February, and is intended to specify matters delegated by the law.

According to the revision, the Safety and Health Disclosure Program will take effect from August 1. Employers with 500 or more permanent workers and construction business owners whose annual construction project value exceeds KRW 120 billion will be required to make disclosures. Newly required items include details of fatal accidents involving subcontracted workers and fatal accidents in publicly funded construction projects. The government expects to guarantee workers' right to know and encourage companies to make their own efforts towards preventing industrial accidents as a result.

Kim Young-hoon, Minister of Employment and Labor, became a frontline industrial safety inspector on the 22nd and conducted an unscheduled safety inspection. Ministry of Employment and Labor

The Honorary Industrial Safety Supervisor system is also being strengthened. Employers are now required to appoint a worker nominated by the employee representative as an Honorary Industrial Safety Supervisor, and the right to make nominations is being expanded from only business sites with an Industrial Safety and Health Committee to all workplaces' employee representatives. If a person serves as an employer representative or is an employer under the Labor Standards Act, the employer may remove them from the position.

If the obligation to conduct risk assessments is violated, a maximum fine of KRW 10 million will be imposed. Specifically, this will apply to workplaces with 50 or more employees from January 1, 2027, and to those with fewer than 50 employees from January 1, 2028. Failure to conduct risk assessments will incur a fine of KRW 5 million for the first violation, KRW 7 million for the second, and KRW 10 million for the third. Violating the obligation to involve employees or share the results will result in a fine of up to KRW 5 million, while violating the requirement to record and preserve the results will result in a fine of up to KRW 3 million.

Additionally, workplaces where two or more industrial accidents such as fires, explosions, or collapses have occurred in the past year due to a failure to properly implement safety or health measures will now be newly included as subjects of mandatory safety and health improvement plans. The government stated, "We will encourage systematic improvement in workplaces that repeatedly experience industrial accidents so that hazardous and dangerous factors can be swiftly eliminated and recurrence can be prevented."

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