Samsung E&C Group Workers Advised to Execute Right to Halt Work in Even ¡®Not Acute Situation¡¯
Samsung C&T President & CEO Oh Se-chul. (Photos: Samsung C&T)
Samsung C&T Engineering & Construction (E&C) Group declared a ceremony to guarantee workers¡¯ right to halt their work in a full-fledged fashion in March.
For the six months since the declaration, such a right had been utilized for a combined 2,175 occasions.
The Act on Industrial Safety and Health stipulates workers¡¯ right to stop their work in the case they are in an acute danger and a major disaster takes place.
The E&C Group enthusiastically guarantees the use of such a right even when workers consider their worksites in an unsafe environment or situation, even if it is not in an acute danger.
For the past six months, a combined 2,175 case of using workers¡¯ right to stop their work were reported from 84 worksites in Korea and abroad – a monthly average of 360 cases.
Out of the total, 2,127 cases or 98 percent were in a situation in which necessary steps were taken within 30 minutes after workers¡¯ request to stop their work was made.
An official with the E&C Group said, ¡°Workers, alerted with very tiny issues, tend to find dangerous factors and share them, thus contributing to preventing safety accidents.¡±
It is significant now that a safety environment can take root in which workers ask for their safety right on their free will even if it is not in an acute danger, the official said.
Samsung E&C Group guarantees workers¡¯ right to stop their work to ensure safety. This photo shows a signboard informing workers¡¯right to stop their work citing safety.
Six hundred and fifteen cases or 28 percent involved demand for taking additional steps while working at lofty places while 542 cases or 25 percent were related to the simultaneous working both at upper and lower levels and possible danger of fallen objects, caused by gusts.
Two hundred and forty-nine cases or 11 percent were related to possible collision of pieces of equipment due to the duplication of work and same movements while 220 cases or 10 percent involved the possible falling, caused by steep passages.
Workers¡¯ demand for suspending their work due to sultry heat or downpours had also soared.
Bae Im-ho, a crew leader with the Pyeongtaek construction site said, ¡°An On-site priority on safety environment is taking root.¡±
¡°Many workers aggressively are exercising their requests for safety over even minor dangers,¡° he added.
The E&C Group has carried out institutional overhaul and correction so that workers are free to execute their right to stop work without worry over disadvantages.
The E&C Group as expanded incentives and reward for workers related to their exercising of the right to stop work.
The group paid incentives worth about 166 million won to 1,500 workers for the past six months in the form of rewarding top informers and accumulating danger exploration mileages.
The group has a system in place in which cooperative companies¡¯ damages can be compensated in the case workers¡¯ invoking of their right to stop work would disrupt work.
The E&C Group, based on six months¡¯ experiences on the right to stop work, plans to overhaul the way such a right can be operated by reflecting the conventional safety & health management system so that workers can invoke such a right in an easy and quick fashion and steps taken immediately can be shared.
The group plans to unify a channel of accepting dangerous things and taking steps against them by developing the related exploration and step application (S-Platform).
Each on-site emergency safety countermeasure team will be reinforced so that dangerous factors can be explored in advance on top of the immediate taking of steps against dangerous factors through accumulated danger exploration data management.
The E&C Group said, ¡°We¡¯ll make efforts to build an safety environment in which workers confirm safety to work on their own through greater use of the right to stop work.¡±
The group plans to dramatically raise safety and environment levels by aggressively utilizing their own safety reinforcement expenses, it said.