33% increase in casualties in 5 years... Park Soo-min, the national power, says, “We need a major change in industrial accident policy.”

Over the past five years, the cumulative number of industrial accidents at 30 public enterprises has exceeded 1,000. Among these, the number of industrial accidents at Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL) was found to account for half of the total.

According to data received from the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency by People Power Party lawmaker Park Soo-min, a member of the Climate, Energy, Environment and Labor Committee of the National Assembly on the 4th, the cumulative number of industrial accidents at 30 public enterprises from 2021 to the first quarter of this year was 1,164, including 906 accident victims and 258 disease victims, respectively. Of these, 47 people died.

The number of industrial accidents by year increased every year to 189 in 2021, 207 in 2022, 230 in 2023, 238 in 2024, and 251 last year (32.8% increase compared to 2021). There were 49 casualties in the first quarter of this year.

The number of deaths decreased slightly to 12 in 2021, 10 in 2022, and 4 in 2023, but then increased again to 11 in 2024 and 10 last year. As of the first quarter of this year, there have been 0 deaths due to industrial accidents.

By company, KORAIL accounted for half of the total with 550 employees (47.2%) over the past five years. The number of deaths during this period was counted at 20.

This was followed by Kangwon Land with 125 people (1 death), KEPCO KPS with 101 people (8 deaths), Korea Electric Power Corporation with 91 people (4 deaths), and the Korea Racing Authority (2 deaths).

The top five public companies in the number of industrial accidents all increased the number of accidents last year compared to 2021. In particular, KEPCO KPS ranked first in growth rate, increasing 2.5 times from 12 in 2021 to 31 last year.

Among the 906 industrial accidents caused by accidents, 229 (25.3%) fell, 110 (12.1%) collided, 95 (10.5%) were involved in sports events, and 94 (10.4%) were caught in accidents.

Among these, 498 people, or 55.0%, suffered from identical or repetitive conventional accidents such as falls, collisions, getting caught, or falling.

Among the 258 industrial accidents caused by disease, 89 (34.5%) were physically taxing work over the past 5 years, 57 (22.1%) had noise-induced hearing loss, 34 (13.2%) had mental illness, 22 (8.5%) had cerebrovascular disease, and 19 (7.4%) had non-accidental back pain. There were 33 deaths during this period, and 14 people died from cerebral and cardiovascular diseases.

Rep. Park criticized, "President Lee Jae-myung defined repeated industrial accidents as intentional murder due to lack of workmanship, and Minister of Employment and Labor Kim Young-hoon pushed for the reduction of industrial accidents with hard-line measures, saying he would risk his position. However, accidents and diseases have increased every year, even in public enterprises that should be exemplary industrial safety."

He emphasized, "As it has been revealed that safety in the field can never be maintained by only using the whip of punishment and pressure for show, we must immediately initiate a fundamental change in perception that will change the structure of industrial accident prevention."