(1) Reasons for Proposal
With the amendments to the entire Occupational Safety and Health Act (Act no. 16272, promulgated 1.15.2019, to be enforced 1.16.2020) proposing to expand the scope of the entities responsible for industrial accident prevention and introducing the system of approving contracts, the Act aims to determine matters delegated under the relevant law and the measures required for their enforcement, such as places of business requiring their representative directors’ establishment of plans for safety and health, and franchisers required to implement measures to prevent industrial accidents and places of business subject to approval of harmful and hazardous contract work, while including electricity-related businesses subject to the integrated management of industrial accidents involving prime contractors and subcontractors and increasing the types of businesses required to appoint safety and health managers, thereby remedying some of the inadequacies revealed in the operation of the current system.
(2) Major Provision
A. Provision of added protection for workers in public administration, etc. (Article 2, attached Table 1)
1) The problem has been raised that workers engaged in public administration, educational services performing totally different work with respect to harmful/hazardous factors are construed as being excluded from protection under the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
2) Remedy the problem such that some exclusionary provisions under the law shall not apply to workers in relevant fields, since industrial accidents are increasing with the growing numbers of workers engaged in public administration, educational services, etc.
B. Expansion of the types of businesses subject to integrated announcement of industrial accidents involving contractors and subcontractors (Article 10, paragraph 2)
1) The frequent occurrence of incidences of death in the power generation field as recently revealed by the death of a subcontracted worker in the Taean Thermal Power Plant requires the addition of electricity-related businesses to the category of integrated management of industrial accidents involving contractors and subcontractors.
2) Induce efforts by prime contractors to prevent industrial accidents involving subcontractors by applying an ‘integrated system of management of industrial accidents involving prime and subcontractors’ even to the ‘electricity-related businesses including the power generation business
C. Requirements for representative directors to establish safety and health plans (Article 12)
1) Determine the place of business that is required to enjoin the representative director to establish safety and health plans and report them to the board of directors for approval.
2) Ensure that the safety and health activity records of the previous year, safety and health management policy and safety and health activity plans are included in the safety and health plan.
D. Raising the standard for appointing a safety manager for the construction business (Article 15, attached Table 3)
1) Prevent industrial accidents by appointing a safety manager even for a construction site with a construction contract price of over KRW 5 billion to under KRW 12 billion having high incidences of death, among others.
2) Raise the standard for appointing a safety manager for the construction business to a place of business with a construction contract price of over KRW 5 billion and determine the number of safety managers to be appointed together with appointment methods.
E. Increasing the number of types of business required to appoint health managers (Article 19, attached Table 5)
1) Since land transportation and pipeline transportation businesses are excluded from the current types of businesses required to appoint health managers, it is necessary to add them to the type of business required to appoint health managers to manage workers suffering from physical and mental fatigue and exposure to chemical substances, etc.
2) Aim to prevent loss of life and occupational diseases through professional health management by including land transportation and pipeline transportation business with over 50 full-time workers in the category of places of business required to appoint health managers.
F. Adjustment of threshold quantities of the substances subject to submission of a process safety report (Article 43, attached Table 11)
1) ‘Require a systematic review and supplementation of all regulated substances caused by industrial and technological changes and the 30 types of newly added regulated substances in 2014 since the introduction of the process safety report (21 types of regulated substances) in 1996.
2) Review the domestic and international cases of harm and hazards of 51 types of regulated substances, systematically classify and compare each type of substance (flammability, toxicity, corrosiveness, gas, liquid, solid) regarding its harm/hazard to rationally adjust their respective threshold quantities.
G. Work required to obtain approval for contract (Article 51)
1) With the introduction of a contract approval system, determine the work with a high possibility of accidents when contracted out from among other harmful/hazardous types of work, and require the establishment of a system enabling the determination of businesses requiring contract approval without amending the law if restrictions on contracts are required for urgent and important reasons.
2) Require approval when contracting out the remodeling, dismantling, disassembly, demolition, etc., of equipment for handling sulfuric acid, hydrofluoric acid, nitric acid, hydrochloric acid with high incident rates among harmful chemical substances, and if restrictions on contracts are required for urgent reasons, determine the work as prescribed by the Minister of Employment and Labor to be subject to contract approval following deliberation by the committee on industrial accident compensation insurance and prevention.
H. Construction work requiring construction contract awarders to take measures to prevent industrial accidents (Article 56)
Determine the relevant construction work to enable the obligations arising from the new establishment by construction contract awarder of industrial accident prevention measures.
I. Machinery and apparatus requiring safety and health measures by construction contractors (Article 67)
1) Construction machines by which installation, assembly/disassembly are performed on construction sites of the machines, apparatus or equipment, etc., requiring the implementation of necessary measures by construction contractors to prevent harm and hazards. These construction machines shall be defined as the “tower crane, lifting machine, pile driver and pile drawer.”
J. Businesses requiring measures to prevent industrial accidents by franchisers (Article 70)
Determine the food service businesses and convenience stores from among retail/wholesale businesses requiring franchisers to provide measures to prevent industrial accidents, as determined by the number of franchisees.
K. Newly established criteria for workforce, facilities, and equipment required for registration of the tower crane installation/disassembly business (Article 73, attached Table 15)
1) Newly establish in the minimum workforce, facilities, and equipment criteria for registration as a tower crane installation/disassembly business that a minimum of four persons qualified for tower crane installation/disassembly shall be employed.
2) Determine the grounds for revocation of registration if a tower crane installation/disassembly business operator is sentenced to a fine or to imprisonment without labor or heavier punishment for his/her failure to comply with safety rules, and establish the criteria for imposing a fine for negligence if installing/disassembling the tower crane without registering the tower crane installation/disassembly business.
L. Designation of harmful factors requiring the establishment of allowable limits (Article 85, attached Table 18)
Additionally designate as the substances requiring the establishment of allowable limits the 24 types of chemical substances including ethylene oxide that cause or may cause occupational diseases due to their serious harmfulness such as CMR (carcinogenic•mutagenic•reprotoxic).
M. Exemption from the preparation, provision, etc., of the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) (Article 87)
1) Require exemption from the application of the MSDS system for chemical substances and those used in R&D for which information is provided under other laws.
2) Exempt some chemical substances (health foods, etc.) and those used in R&D (less than 100kg of annually manufactured, imported quantity (10kg in a separate, individual container unit)).
