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Korea Occupational Safety & Health Agency (안전보건공단, 韓國産業安全保健公團) is a body in Korea, which serves to protect the health and safety of Korean workers. ==The advent of KOSHA== It was late 1980s that KOSHA (Korea Occupational Safety & Health Agency) Law was released to the public. After the KOSHA Act was released in 1986, the labor department of Korea, which is the competent organization of KOSHA, moved to the next step that set up the plan for establishing KOSHA and inaugurated the institution committee for KOSHA in 1987. Since then, KOSHA has been taking responsibility for the important role in occupational safety and health in the workplace. It had been a long time for people to look forward to working at the workplace without getting involved in occupational accidents or diseases. It was one of the fastest changing periods for Koreans who lived in during the industrial revolution of Korea. Before moving to the history of KOSHA, we need to examine the environmental and societal circumstances that lead to its development. Korea experienced significant economic growth, the so-called "the miracle of Han river", during a five-year-long Economic Development Plan beginning in 1962. It resulted from two societal factors, the movement of population from rural to urban environments and the change of major industry. According to the statistic of Koreans agricultural department, the majority of Korean made a living engaging in farming and over 80% of people in Korea belonged to the rural community at that time. In particular, the rice culture that has been the most important crop in Korea since the Lee Dynasty, it required significant physical labor, but the gains from that were in vain, compared to the time and labor that farmers spent on doing that. Also, the Korean government tried to improve the quality of life in an agricultural village, but people who knew a vicious circle of farming were driven into cities which needed less expensive labor. At the very beginning of industrial boom, most small-medium factories and industries could take-off to increase in light of size and quality through using these affluent labor powers. Thus, as industrial facilities became larger and the process became varied, the rate of exposure to the dangerous materials were increased, numerous occupational disasters and diseases broke out and started to affect on the health of workers, both directly and indirectly. Since the statistics of occupational disaster were begun during July, 1964, taking the industrial accidents compensation insurance effect, over two million of workers were involved in occupational accidents. Among them, over 20,000 workers died, the remained became the disabled and the economic loss reached the amount of 6,000 million dollars (KOSHA 20th annual report). Likewise, as occupational disasters became a bigger issue in the view of society and economics, the Korean government established and released the Occupational and Safety Law in 1981. But that was not enough to stop the growth of the rate of occupational disasters. Even the casualties of industrial accidents continued to increase because of the shortage of the experts and because owners of industries lacked interest. Hence, there were few effective ways to prevent those accidents. Accordingly, the government recognized the seriousness of the incident's harm and searched for a solution by establishing a professional organization for preventing occupational disaster. Also, there has been pressure from labor unions and from society. Until that time, Korea had been ruled by presidents from army circles since President Park was inaugurated by a military coup in 1961. They did not allow workers to establish trade unions or ask for the enactment of the Labor Union Act, although there were, in name only, Labor Acts such as the Labor Standard Act, the Mediation Act in labor trouble. These were used for the benefit of owners. When seen from the political view, there were a significant number of demonstrations for democracy in Korea. The different point is that workers, including white collar workers, and the general public joined the request. Demonstrations were usually college students' before 1986. Especially, workers called upon substantial laws to reinforce owners who pursued the profit, but were not interested in employees' basic rights. Consequently, the Korean government stepped forward to establish a professional organization intended to protect the basic rights of workers at worksites. KOSHA's goals involve promoting the safety and health of workers, encouraging efficient business to prevent industrial accidents, and to motivate business proprietors into joining them, contributing to the improvement of economic development. The meanings of the establishment can be summarized as follows. # KOSHA offers professional knowledge and experts to establish, national, synthetic and technical systems of occupational accident prevention. # KOSHA advocates for providing safe and clean environments for workers and contributes to enlighten Korean society about safety. # KOSHA seeks to reduce the rate of industrial disasters that prevent Korea from entering the developed country; it raised the power of national competition to join the OECD. (E-book of the history of KOSHA) Likewise, KOSHA was established having a significant mission to protect the precious life, physical safety, and health of workers. Also, KOSHA uplifted the quality of life while growing into a professional organization. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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