South Korea: The Ministry of Employment and Labor promulgates and enforces an amendment to the Enforcement Rules of the Occupational Safety and Health Act

On September 27, 2023, the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) in South Korea announced that it has promulgated an amendment of the ‘Occupational Safety and Health Act Enforcement Rules’. The amendment includes the following key contents: 

1. Improving of the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) system to protect the trade secrets of chemical substances. The MSDS is a kind of chemical substance manual that lists the name and content of chemical substances, harmfulness, hazards, handling precautions, etc. When chemical substances are sold to other workplaces, the MSDS must be included, but to protect trade secrets, the MSDS can be provided with alternative names and contents with the approval of the Ministry of Employment and Labor. 

2. The range of use of alternative names and alternative contents has been improved to reflect the voice of industry. In the future, not only ‘mixing’ but also ‘physical molding’ and ‘subdivision’ methods will be allowed, and if other products are made from trade secret chemical substances ‘overseas’ and ‘imported’, alternative names and alternative contents can be used to create ‘Material Safety Health Data’. 

3. The period for completing refresher training for safety and health managers will be extended. In order to allow job training candidates such as safety and health managers to complete their training at a time of their choosing without being constrained by the schedule of the training institution, the period for completing refresher training is extended from 3 months before and after (a total of 6 months) based on the date of completion the new training to 6 months before and after (a total of 1 year). 

4. The regular education cycle for workers will be relaxed from ‘every 3 months’ to ‘every six months’, and if regular safety education and new safety education under the ‘Special Act on Harbor Safety’ have been completed, the time for regular education and employment will be reduced. 

5. For companies that only provide health-related education, the requirement is relaxed so that more than half of each course’s education time must be completed. 

6. For daily workers and fixed-term workers with a contract duration of less than one week, if they return to the same workplace with the same job within one week of completing the employment education (or special education), the education is exempted. 

7. For fixed-term workers with a contract duration of less than one week the education time is relaxed to 1 hour, and for fixed-term workers with a contract duration of more than one week and less than one month, it is relaxed to 4 hours. 

8. In addition, matters related to risk assessment will be added to the regular education content for workers and supervisors and employment education.