Summary of the White Paper on Major Work-Related Accidents at Hyundai Heavy Industries (Volumes I–III)

Juhee Jeon, Seogyo Humanities and Social Sciences Research Lab

Yejin Kim, Kim Yonggyun Foundation

Yonghyun Lim, Korea Institute of Labor Safety and Health

Jinwoo Son, Korea Institute of Labor Safety and Health

2026

1. Purpose and Background

The White Paper on Major Work-Related Accidents at Hyundai Heavy Industries (Volumes I–III) is a long-term record of industrial accidents compiled under the leadership of the Hyundai Heavy Industries branch of the Korean Metal Workers’ Union, with participation from researchers and field activists in labor and industrial safety. The White Paper aims to restore the repeated deaths of workers as a social record and not just as mere accident statistics. The White Paper also aims to identify the structural causes and corporate responsibility for these accidents, and establish foundational data for the improvement of industrial safety systems.

The compilation involved researchers and activists including Jeon Ju-hee, Kim Ye-jin, Lim Yong-hyun, and Son Jin-woo, with advisory cooperation from civic organizations such as the Korean Institute of Labor Safety and Health, the Kim Yong-gyun Foundation, and the Ulsan Work-Related Accident Prevention Movement. Data were collected through cross-verification of decades of union accident records, union newsletter Minju Hanghae, subcontractor newsletters, on-site documents, testimonies from bereaved families and co-workers, and official statistics.

In 2024, extensive handwritten and typed records from the 1980s and 1990s were discovered and restored, ensuring continuity of death records since 1974. As of December 2025, a total of 604 workers were confirmed to have died while working at the shipyard. The editorial team defines this record as “a faithful act of mourning for 604 workers and a declaration for the survival of all shipyard workers still living.”

2. Purpose and Significance of the Data

The White Paper chronologically documents fatal and major work-related accidents at Hyundai Heavy Industries from 1974 to 2025. It details each accident’s sequence of events, working conditions, management systems, and subcontracting relations, thereby revealing the structural nature of work-related accidents at the company.

The White Paper demonstrates that repeated accidents are not the result of chance or individual error but the combined outcome of employment structures, production systems, and safety management regimes. It transforms workers’ deaths from internal corporate incidents into a structural social problem for which society as a whole bears responsibility.

3. Long-Term Trends in Fatal and Major Accidents

As of December 2025, the White Paper confirms a total of 604 work-related deaths at Hyundai Heavy Industries, including officially recognized work-related deaths as well as deaths from overwork, occupational diseases such as pneumoconiosis, and other work-related illnesses. The data illustrates the impact shipyard working conditions have had on workers’ lives and health over decades.

During the 1970s and 1980s, basic work-related accidents such as falls, crushing, electrocution, explosions, and suffocation were frequent during the rapid expansion of shipbuilding operations. Through the 1990s and 2000s, the scale and risk of accidents intensified alongside increased facility scale and complexity of processes. After the 2000s, the expansion of subcontracting and multi-tier employment structures led to a clear pattern where a significant proportion of fatal accidents concentrated among subcontracted workers.

Specifically, the white paper analyzed the seasonality, processes, and working conditions of accidents. It confirmed that major accidents repeatedly occurred in high-risk operations such as ship block assembly, painting, welding, crane and heavy-material handling, and confined-space work. This demonstrates that work-related accidents do not occur randomly but are structurally reproduced within hazardous processes and vulnerable employment arrangements.

4. Accident Types and Structural Causes

The White Paper identified the following persistent structural problems:

1. Outsourcing of risk and multi-tier subcontracting: High-risk tasks are concentrated among subcontracted workers instead of the prime contractor’s regular employees. The structure prioritizes work speed and volume over safety standards. Subcontracted workers that face insecure employment find it difficult to refuse hazardous tasks. Cases where they are deployed to sites without adequate training or protective equipment were repeatedly confirmed.

2. Formalized and ineffective safety systems: Risk assessments and safety regulations exist largely on paper and fail to reflect real working conditions, leaving a dangerous gap between rules and practice. Changes in work plans, process interference, deteriorating weather conditions, and other on-site hazards are not immediately reflected in the safety management system. Consequently, the gap between regulations and reality leads to accidents.

3. Individualization of responsibility and concealment of accidents: Corporate practices have tended to emphasize individual worker fault over systemic causes. Some accidents have been concealed or downplayed through delayed workers’ compensation processing, delayed hospital transfers, or missing records. These practices act as major barriers to fundamental improvements in accident causes.

4. Structural neglect of overwork and occupational disease: Long working hours and high-intensity labor have produced deaths from overwork, cardiovascular disease, pneumoconiosis, and occupational cancers. However, these illnesses have long been inadequately recognized and managed as occupational illnesses. This demonstrates that the shipyard working environment constitutes another form of work-related accident, continuously eroding workers’ lives

5. Conclusions and Policy Implications

The White Paper demonstrates that major work-related accidents at Hyundai Heavy Industries are not the result of individual worker errors or on-site manager misjudgments, but rather a structural outcome of interconnected production systems, employment arrangements, and safety management regimes.

Therefore, to substantially reduce industrial accidents, the following structural transformations are required. First, outsourcing of high-risk processes must be restricted, and evading responsibility arising from multi-tier subcontracting structures must be prevented. Second, a worker-participatory safety management system must be established, enabling workers to directly assess risks and exercise the right to stop work. Third, a joint responsibility structure must be established where the prime contractor bears substantive and legal responsibility for the safety and health of subcontracted workers. Fourth, overwork and occupational diseases must be actively recognized as work-related accidents, and prevention and management systems must be strengthened at the national policy level.