[Presidential Briefing] “No more bread soaked in tears” — President Lee’s on-site pledge to end repeated industrial accidents (July 25, 2025)
[Presidential Briefing] “No more bread soaked in tears” — President Lee’s on-site pledge to end repeated industrial accidents (July 25, 2025)
Overview
On July 25, 2025 at 10:30 a.m., President Lee Jae-myung visited the SPC Samlip plant in Siheung, the site of a recent fatal industrial accident. Joined by SPC leadership, front-line workers, and peers from the food manufacturing sector, the President condemned the recurrence of identical accidents in the same workplaces and demanded practical, field-ready measures rather than “performative checklists.” SPC announced a set of safety upgrades, and CJ Foodville and Crown Confectionery shared best practices. The President also spent time listening to workers’ first-hand accounts and requests.
Key Message & Meaning
From empathy to execution: “No more bread soaked in tears.”
Framing safety as an issue of human dignity rather than a mere cost item, President Lee — a former worker and industrial accident survivor — called out the structural causes behind repeated tragedies in high-risk environments like baking and food manufacturing (heat, dust, repetitive tasks, and night shifts). The emblematic phrase “bread soaked in tears” demands that safety investment be treated as a non‑negotiable obligation, grounded in shared responsibility across government, business, and labor.
Why accidents repeat: five structural bottlenecks
- Night/early-morning concentration with minimal staffing → fatigue, slower reactions.
- Subcontracting layers → diluted responsibility and training gaps.
- Deferred safety investment → postponed upgrades and maintenance.
- Checklist formalism → weak linkage to real risk reduction.
- Individualized blame → system fixes avoided after incidents.
Action Roadmap: Seven field-ready moves
- Raise time‑band safety standards for night shifts; mandate overlapping handover between shifts; apply risk scoring (fatigue, line speed) with guaranteed supervisor presence.
- Shift from equipment safety to system safety: enforce LOTO during cleaning/maintenance, ban interlock bypassing, and ensure energy isolation.
- Link executive KPIs/compensation directly to severe-accident metrics; treat safety capex as risk hedging and brand risk management.
- Designate a single safety owner per line/process (including contractors) with real authority, including the right to stop work.
- Build data‑driven prevention: integrate near‑miss/abnormality/human error into an Early Warning Index (EWI) that triggers alarms, work stoppage, and on‑site manager dispatch.
- Transform training into scenario‑based drills (table‑top, VR) to sharpen on‑the‑spot judgment; add dedicated curricula for night and new hires.
- Open progress and invite scrutiny: disclose improvement status; run an industry benchmarking hub; combine consulting‑type and punitive inspections with certainty of sanctions for repeat violators.
Policy & Social Impact
Amid debates on easing versus tightening the Severe Accident Punishment Act, the President’s stance prioritizes effective enforcement. Even without revising legal text, governments can redesign supervision and operations to prevent accidents in advance. For companies, this is a call to reframe safety as risk management; for labor, a signal that industrial safety is a top state priority.
International Lens
Countries that cut fatality rates share four traits: consistent enforcement, protected stop‑work rights, data‑first prevention, and KPI‑reward alignment at the executive level. Manufacturing leaders in Europe treat safety as part of process and quality, emphasizing prevention by design — removing hazards at the design stage. Korea’s task is to translate these principles into clear shop‑floor rules suited to its industrial structure and labor market.
Outlook: From “after‑the‑fact” to “prevention‑first”
This on‑site meeting should mark a shift toward preventive operations. Government can standardize sector risk manuals, fund bundled safety consulting for SMEs, and fast‑track sanctions for repeat offenders. Companies should bring “S” in ESG to life by embedding supply‑chain safety into KPIs. What matters most is changing the safety of tonight’s night shift — not just rules on paper, but execution in practice.
Official Source (KR)
Read the official briefing (Korean) on the Presidential website: Presidential Briefing — Field meeting at SPC Samlip.
More to Explore
Watch (Korean) & Channel
This article synthesizes our English analysis of the on-site briefing. The original video is in Korean: Watch the original video (KR). For more content, visit our YouTube channel: The President Daily.
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