South Korea's labour minister has ordered zero tolerance for safety violations at workplaces hit by repeated fatal accidents, after summoning the heads of all 49 regional labour offices to an emergency meeting on Saturday 7 November.

Minister Kim Young-hoon told officials that companies where serious accidents of the same type keep happening must face grave scrutiny, with inspections as intensive as special inspections, the most searching type of labour inspection. He also told them to make sure serious accidents do not happen again at sites that have already been inspected.

"If employers still put cost-cutting ahead of safety even after a worker has died, we must make it clear to them that the responsibility they bear is heavy," Kim said.

He singled out the Daebul National Industrial Complex, a shipbuilding cluster in Yeongam on the south-west coast where accidents keep recurring, and ordered officials to find out whether ageing facilities, weak commitment from employers and workers, or the ministry's own shortcomings were to blame. Labour groups say 11 workers died in serious accidents at the complex between January last year and September this year.

Deaths falling, but repeat accidents persist

The ministry said 366 workers died in industrial accidents in the first nine months of the year, down 91, or 19.9 per cent, from a year earlier, the lowest figure since such statistics began. The number of accidents fell 22.3 per cent to 342.

Kim also pointed to the Labor Inspector Duties Act, which takes effect on 8 December and lets local governments inspect workplaces with fewer than 30 employees. He said the law would remake the ministry's role for the first time in 73 years.

"I will be the first to retie the laces of my safety boots," he said.