POSCO-Dongkuk Steel all-out efforts to deal with the severe disaster law and hearings
As the controversy intensified due to successive safety accidents in the steel industry, measures are being taken to prevent recurrence.
From next year, the Act on the Penalty of Major Injured Companies will be enforced, and as soon as the National Assembly’s industrial accident hearing has been announced, they have taken a life and death in correcting the situation.
According to industry sources on the 18th, POSCO announced that it would establish a new’ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Committee’ in the specialized committee of the board of directors.
It intends to reinforce responsibility by letting the board decide on major ESG-related policies such as environment, safety and health, and governance.
It can be interpreted that POSCO’s measures are due to public criticism that the politics did not properly fulfill the duties of the board of directors.
Earlier, the Democratic Party’s representative Lee Nak-yeon strongly criticized at the Party’s Supreme Council on the 15th, saying, “We cannot stop resentment over the continued irresponsible attitude, rather than taking safety measures, despite repeated industrial accidents in POSCO, a global steel company.”
CEO Lee reprimanded, saying, “Violation of the BOD’s obligation to monitor illegal activities”, saying that POSCO has never held a related board of directors in the past 10 years, even though hundreds of cases of violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act were found, including 42 workers killed in the past 5 years did.
The next day, on the 16th, POSCO Chairman Jeong-woo Choi visited the accident site at the raw material pier of the Pohang Works and promised to prevent the accident from recurring and apologized to the bereaved and the public.
On November 25, last year, he bowed his head again three months after the apology was issued in connection with the explosion of the Gwangyang Works.
Chairman Choi said at this meeting, “Even though we have previously declared safety management as our top priority and invested more than 1 trillion won in safety facilities, we are saving many areas that need to be improved, as recent incidents show.” We will actively cooperate with the investigation and look for special measures from the origin.
POSCO decided to invest an additional KRW 1 trillion over the next three years to improve risky and outdated facility infrastructure.
After conducting a thorough investigation of dangerous and old facilities, it plans to install multiple safety protection devices, automate manual valves for hazardous facilities, and install additional safety management CCTVs.
The number of safety management personnel is also doubled from 300 to 600.
However, Chairman Choi said it would be difficult to attend the National Assembly’s industrial accident hearing held on the 22nd due to a backache.
According to the POSCO branch of the metals union of the KCTU, from 2018 to 2020, about 10 employees of POSCO and its partners were killed in industrial accidents at Pohang Works and Gwangyang Works.
It was decided to review the safety measures of Dongkuk Steel from the origin.
Kim Yeon-guk, president of Dongkuk Steel, inspected the accident site at the Busan factory and apologized to the deceased and the bereaved.
President Kim said, “I am terrible and sorry for an accident that should never occur,” he said. “I will pray for the deceased’s condolences with a grieving heart, and accept all reprimands and blame.”
President Kim emphasized, “We will reconsider measures to create a safe workplace from the beginning and take all possible measures thoroughly,” and emphasized, “We will connect the safety system to outsourcing and partner companies in order to protect the safety and health of all working people.”
Dongkuk Steel held a countermeasure meeting to strengthen safety management on the same day, presided by President Kim, with the heads of the safety team at the workplace.
The company decided to increase its investment in the environment and safety sector this year to 25 billion won, a 30% increase from 19 billion won last year.
It is also planning to build a smart safety system that can eliminate blind spots.
At the Dongkuk Steel plant, four accidents have occurred in the last four years, only confirmed by media reports.
/yunhap news