At Ssangyong Motor's Pyeongtaek plant, a worker in his 50s died after being caught in a press machine. Currently, production lines at the factory in question have been stopped operating.
According to the police, colleagues found a 54-year-old worker with a head stuck in a press machine at Ssangyong Motor's second press plant in Chilgoe-dong,
Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, at 12:40 p.m. on July 15 and reported it to 119.
The fire authorities dispatched to the scene said, "As soon as the accident occurred, the factory emergency team took out the man who was pressed by the machine, performed CPR, and moved him to a hospital, but he eventually died."
In response, the union asked for special work supervision on the site, which ignored basic safety measures.
The labor union claimed, "With primitive deaths that could have been prevented if minimum safety measures were taken and the law had been complied with, the company did not implement basic measures to prevent industrial accidents, even though the press is a hazardous risk facility that can cause serious accidents at any time."
According to the labor union, Ssangyong Motor's Pyeongtaek plant had an accident in 1994 when a worker died of a straitened upper body to the press, but 26 years later, another worker died due to the same cause.
"Ssangyong Motors has not even properly conducted safety education, and safety education has been replaced by a 15-minute morning assembly every Monday, and it has been busy filling up formal hours by forcing education signatures to avoid punishment for violations of the law, but no practical training has been carried out for workers," the union claimed.
In addition, the union called on the Ministry of Employment and Labor's Pyeongtaek Employment and Labor Office to conduct a special labor supervision on all of Ssangyong Motor's Pyeongtaek plants and thoroughly supervise the site, and called for punishment of employers who drove workers to death.
