'3 didn't make it home tonight'

By Jason Lim

This was the title (my translation) of a powerful storytelling piece by the Kyunghyang Daily, splashed across its front pages, about the fact that an average of three people are killed daily by industrial accidents in Korea. Rather than just reporting the statistics, the Kyunghyang feature tells stories about the individual victims, making them come alive in a three-dimensional way that invites emotional relevance and empathy.

Kim Ho-min was a 22-year-old who was 19 meters up in the air affixing a metal structure to the concrete wall, balancing himself on a 13-centimeter deep palette that so narrow that his heels stuck out. He was braced against the wall for leverage. He did have a safety belt but there was no hook to hang his belt on. He lost his footing as he strained to turn the screw and fell onto the floor below. He was killed.

Park Jae-woo was a 59-year-old who was moving construction materials near four huge air ventilator tunnels 22 meters up in the air. As he leaned into one to grab and move the material, he fell into the hole to his death. He wasn't wearing a safety belt.

These are just two of the stories of the more than 900 people who are killed annually in industrial accidents in Korea. The main take-away is that these deaths are mostly related to those working in construction, with falling as the leading cause followed by being stuck in machinery, run over by equipment, etc. In fact, Korea leads the list of OECD countries in the number of such deaths.

These statistics compare unfavorably to the U.S. data on industrial injuries and deaths. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were a total of 5,147 fatal work injuries recorded in the U.S. in 2017. Of these, transportation incidents remained the most frequent fatal event in 2017 with 2,077 (40 percent) occupational fatalities. In contrast, fatal falls, slips, and trips accounted for 887 (17 percent) worker deaths. Based on the relative number of construction workers and scope of the construction industry, you'd expect the U.S. figures to be higher, but the number of people killed in construction accidents seems to be comparable.

Experts have pointed out that the lack of safety culture and safety climate are the direct causes for workplace accidents in construction sites. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health in the U.S. defines these terms as follows:

"Safety culture" involves deeply held but often unspoken safety-related beliefs, attitudes, and values shared by employees and employers that affect how things are done in an organization. Safety culture is a subset of, and clearly influenced by, organizational culture. Organizations often have multiple cultures or subcultures, and this may be particularly true in construction.

A "safety climate" is defined as the shared perceptions of safety policies and procedures by members of an organization at a given point in time, particularly regarding the adequacy of safety and consistency between actual conditions compared to espoused safety policies and procedures. Homogeneous subgroups tend to develop shared perceptions while between-group differences are not uncommon within an organization.

What's not said, especially in Korea, is that both safety culture and climate are themselves subsets of the national culture on this issue, one that doesn't believe that human lives are paramount to economic activities. It's one of the unspoken and pernicious side-effects of the Miracle on Han River in which the "Ppali, Ppali" and "Get it done at all costs" spirit took precedence over human safety and lives. This wasn't just rogue companies cutting corners. This was a national philosophy and policy to prioritize economic growth at all costs. Human lives, especially those of the blue-collar laborers, were a commodity that could be cheaply replaced. Safety was a luxury that couldn't be afforded.

Such deification of economic growth still continues to permeate through every layer of the Korean ecosystem, often in unexpected places. Even the Sewol ferry debate has been colored by the need to consider it as a mere boating accident that has long been resolved by the compensation that families have received. The surviving families' efforts to get to the bottom of the truth and force systemic changes to how ships are inspected and given permission to depart have been met with resentment, often accused on trying to turn their children's deaths into a gravy train. In short, you got money for your loss, so stop making waves to how things are done. The crassness by which such attitudes show through often shocks me.

Construction safety in Korea is not just about protecting workers. It goes to the more fundamental question of national priorities. South Korea has achieved both industrialization and democratization in the last few decades. Can it also achieve a deeper cultural shift to rebalance the collective values that it places on human safety and dignity? At least the debate is actively taking place. And that's a good thing.

Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.