Korea Federation of SMEs and Startups, discussion session on resolving the safety gap between large and small industries

Korea Federation of SMEs and Startups, discussion session on resolving the safety gap between large and small industries

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Lee Sang-seo = In order to reduce safety accidents that occur in small businesses, it was suggested that the responsibility and role of the main contractor should be strengthened.

Park Jong-sik, a researcher at the Korea Labor Institute, said at the 'Policy Debate to Resolve the Safety Gap in Large, Small and Medium Industries' held at the Federation of Small and Medium Businesses in Yeouido on the 9th, "In the case of in-house subcontracting, there is a need to strengthen the responsibility and role of the main contractor in order to reduce safety accidents that occur in small businesses." He added, "Outside subcontracting and independent small and medium-sized businesses must establish a joint management system at the regional and industry level."

Researcher Park suggested, “Considering the domestic industrial structure with many workplaces with less than 50 employees, there is a need to improve the policy unit of safety and health management from the existing ‘individual workplace’ to ‘collective unit.’”

This debate, held by the Korea Federation of SMEs and Startups, the Industrial Safety Coexistence Foundation, and the Korea Labor Institute, was designed to examine the reasons why industrial accidents are concentrated in small businesses with less than 50 employees and to discuss industrial safety policy support measures that small and medium-sized businesses can practically implement.

Seo Jeong-soo, team leader of the Industrial Safety Coexistence Foundation, who gave the presentation, explained, "As a result of analyzing 186 workplaces with less than 100 employees that participated in the foundation's integrated support project over the past three years, the accident rate decreased by 16.7% compared to the previous year, and the number of serious accidents decreased from 6 to 1." He added, "The safety and health management system evaluation score also increased from an average of 35 to 66."

In the general discussion that followed, Professor Kang Seong-gyu of Gachon University Gil Hospital served as moderator, and experts discussed the direction of policy support and future tasks to strengthen industrial safety capabilities of small and medium-sized enterprises.

The Korea Federation of SMEs and Startups plans to continue consultations with the government and the National Assembly based on field opinions raised at this debate and spread best safety management cases.