This meeting was a strong warning prepared by the Ministry of Employment and Labor to completely reform POSCO Group's safety management policy. This is already the fourth fatal accident that has occurred at the Shinansan Line Section 3-2 site this year, proving that the risk at the site has reached a critical level. Minister of Employment and Labor Kim Young-hoon put pressure on the need for special safety measures appropriate for high-risk workplaces to be implemented on site, and strongly urged expanded safety investment and strengthening of the practical authority of health managers. Key executives, including Chairman Jang In-hwa, have shown their determination to mobilize all capabilities at the group level to eradicate repetitive disasters that occur in the field, but the government and public opinion are focused on how past promises will lead to concrete actions in the field.

The countermeasure proposed by Chairman In-Hwa In-Hwa consists of very specific and intensive prescriptions. The most notable part is the unprecedented promise to convert all safety experts at the Shinansan Line site, where accidents were concentrated, to full-time employees and to deploy personnel exceeding legal standards. This can be interpreted as an intention to strengthen the continuity and responsibility of on-site safety management, and includes a plan to conduct thorough management by having a world-class safety professional supervisor on site until the end of construction. These measures go beyond simple staffing, and are interpreted as an expression of the company's strong will to overcome the limitations of the outsourced safety management system and take responsibility for safety directly.

However, some are skeptical about whether these measures will be effective. Last year, POSCO Group continued to make efforts to improve the system, including launching the Safety Special Diagnosis Task Force (TF) and establishing ‘POSCO Safety Solutions,’ a safety-specialized subsidiary. Nevertheless, continuous accidents suggest that structural problems remain, such as internal practices within the organization, lack of communication with field workers, or failure to establish a safety culture. Whether the innovation plan announced this time will lead to actual safety investment and site-centered preventive activities using past failures as a lesson, or whether it will be just another formality depends solely on the strong driving force of management and changes in the field.

This task facing POSCO Group goes beyond simply avoiding legal punishment; it is a survival strategy to regain the public’s trust. The ‘resolute determination’ that Chairman Jang emphasized must now be proven not as a sacrament of words, but as actual results in the field where not a single worker is sacrificed. The policy of reexamining the safety systems of all affiliates covering the construction and steel industries from scratch is encouraging, but what is more important is the safety awareness of those who operate them rather than the sophistication of the system. Establishing flexible governance that broadly accepts the opinions of experts and directly reflects the voices of field workers in safety policies may be the only way to prevent repeated tragedies.