Who we are

KILSH, the Korea Institute of Labor Safety and Health, is the outcome of the decade’s struggle for health and safety of workers in Korea.
The death of a teen-age worker, Moon SongMyun from the overexposure to mercury in 1988 provoked struggles for more healthy and safe workplace in Korea. Korean workers’ health and safety movement is ascribed to a series of significant fights: a collective claim of workers’ compensation for occupational diseases caused by chronic exposure to Carbon disulfide in WonJin rayon company in 1992, and a struggle in 1999 that originated in the suicide of an injured worker, Lee SangKwan who was afraid of being cut off from the medical care covered by workers’ compensation. The rapid increase of work-related musculoskeletal disorders at workplace has become an important issue to the Korean trade union movement.

KILSH was launched in September 2003 from the experience of the Joint Research Committee for Work Related Musculoskeletal Disorders in October 2002.

The slogans of KILSH are workplace-oriented action, workplace-oriented expertise and class-consciousness. The members of KILSH consist of workers, activists and physicians. We are trying to build a nation-wide center for the workers’ health and safety movement built on labor participation, and mobilize workers to take the control over their workplaces.

To overcome the professionalism and corporatism of the trade union movement, we are constructing nation-wide regional systems based on the community activities, and pursuing the ultimate change of society.