On February 9, 2021, the MOEL announced the “Comprehensive Plan for Occupational Safety and Health Audit for 2021” (the “2021 OSH Audit Plan”).  With the Serious Accidents Punishment Act (the “SAPA”) scheduled to go into effect from January 2022 for businesses with 50 or more employees, the MOEL has announced the 2021 OSH Audit Plan with the twin goals of raising awareness for occupational safety and health and improving the current practices of businesses. 

This announcement follows on the heels of the annual report to President Moon Jae-In by the MOEL in early February 2021, when the MOEL highlighted the following as the key initiatives during 2021 to secure safe workplace for workers: (i) bring innovation to safety management regimes of businesses; (ii) strengthen audit to prevent risk factors for workplace safety; (iii) increase investment to prevent industrial accidents and (iv) establish cooperation between government and the business community.   

Key Directions for the 2021 OSH Audit Plan 

The 2021 OSH Audit Plan will focus on the following. 

• Focus audit activities on whether basic safety measures are being taken to address three critical risk factors which give rise to fatalities: 
  ‒ Fall from height 
  ‒ Being squeezed between objects 
  ‒ Failure to wear personal protective equipment 
  ‒ Relevant industries: manufacturing and construction  

• Enhance guidance and oversight over the relevant parties who are responsible for safety in the workplace (i.e., service recipient company, project sponsor, etc.) 
  ‒ Relevant industries: manufacturing and construction  

• Increase regulatory oversight to prevent occurrence of large-scale industrial accidents, such as fires and explosions 
  ‒ Relevant industries: manufacturing and construction 

• Assign regulators to specific industry and/or specific region, with a view to facilitating greater familiarity with the relevant businesses subject to audit 
  ‒ Relevant industries: all industries 

Additional Considerations 

• It is worth noting that the 2021 OSH Audit Plan addresses the MOEL’s audit of businesses pursuant to the Occupational Safety and Health Act (the “OSHA”).  Although the SAPA is not yet effective, the upcoming MOEL audit will be very relevant for the affected businesses, because the failure to comply with the remediation orders, etc. during the course of audit will constitute a violation of Article 4, Item 3 of the SAPA.  More fundamentally, the outcome of the audit can leave a record trail in case of future “serious accident” for the authorities to investigate. 

• The MOEL issued a press release on February 10, 2021, whereby it identified 1,466 businesses which suffered “serious accidents” and engaged in violation of the OSHA (including hiding of industrial accidents from the authorities).  It is very likely that the businesses referred to by the MOEL in the February 10 press release will be subject to the safety and health audit by the MOEL pursuant to the 2021 OSH Audit Plan. 

• The following are the industries cited in the above-mentioned press release, which experienced a “serious accident” during 2020 under the Working Rules under the OSHA (i.e., one fatality or more, two or more injured persons requiring treatment of three months or longer, or ten or more persons simultaneously suffering from injury or illness): 

[Korean version]