The Daegu Regional Employment and Labor Administration has specially supervised POSCO Pohang Steel Mill, where a series of industrial accidents have occurred, and detected hundreds of violations.
According to the Daegu Regional Employment and Labor Administration on April 20, 225 violations of the law were found as a result of special supervision of the Daegu Employment and Labor Office, Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency, and external experts.
In a related development, the labor administration imposed a fine of 443.2 million won on Pohang Steel Mill.
According to the result of diagnosing the safety system, the maintenance and repair work procedures of the subcontractors were not properly managed by the main contractor, and several suppliers were mixed in the unstructured work section, making it difficult to manage.
The labor office plans to punish POSCO and its suppliers after further investigation into violations of the law. It will also improve the safety management status of workplaces through a comprehensive safety and health diagnosis led by the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency.
Three people died in a series of accidents from December last year to February at Pohang Steel Mill.
On December 9 last year, an employee of a subcontractor crashed and died due to corroded pipe damage while doing reinforcing work at the No. 3 sintering plant. On the 23rd of the same month, a worker belonging to a subcontractor crashed into a 25-ton dump truck while riding a motorcycle to work for night duty.
On February 8, an employee of a partner company who was repairing a crane at the raw material dock was caught in the facility and died.
An official from the Daegu Regional Employment and Labor Administration said, "We plan to operate a field patrol team of labor supervisors even after special supervision to manage it closely and continuously monitor the implementation of emergency safety measures."
In response, Roh Woong-rae, a lawmaker of the Democratic Party of Korea criticized the results of the Daegu Regional Employment and Labor Office's special supervision of POSCO as "a hollow audit."
Representative Roh said on April 20, "This special audit was no different from the repeated show-off audit for years. What's the point of a fine of 400 million won when POSCO's annual sales exceed 50 trillion won?"
