POSCO Engineering & Construction, which had suspended construction work nationwide, will resume work starting from the sites that have completed safety inspections.
On the 21st, POSCO Engineering & Construction stated on its website notice that "we will prioritize completing safety inspections at sites directly related to the public's lives, and will gradually resume construction work."
It also noted that "we will complete the five-step verification process starting from sites with a high degree of public service and directly related to the people's lives and will sequentially resume work at 21 secured buildings and 7 infrastructure sites."
After a series of worker fatalities this year, POSCO Engineering & Construction completely suspended work at 103 sites nationwide starting from the 4th.
POSCO Engineering & Construction is assessing whether to resume construction work after safety inspections at each site, which involve a five-step verification process including ▲ inspections by external experts ▲ confirmation of improvement measures ▲ safety management compliance checks ▲ approval by the Chief Safety Officer (CSO) ▲ communication with relevant agencies.
Even after work resumes, POSCO Engineering & Construction plans to conduct another inspection of all sites with the participation of the Group Safety Special Diagnosis Task Force and professional diagnostic institutions to enhance safety capabilities. Additional precision checks will be conducted for sites with high-risk processes.
The site manager will be required to check safety daily and must make a declaration of an "official safety work site" before work can begin. Plans are underway to institutionalize safety town hall meetings involving workers, establishing a safety culture system along with cooperating companies.
POSCO Engineering & Construction said, "Based on the painful experiences we have endured, we will significantly enhance the safety management standards across the industry and lead a new safety paradigm in the construction sector," adding, "We will place the value of sites directly related to the public's peace of mind as the top priority and create a standard for a sustainable future construction market based on the recognition that 'safety is competitiveness.'"
Meanwhile, it has been reported that the health of a 30-year-old Myanmar worker who was electrocuted at a highway construction site of POSCO Engineering & Construction is in recovery.