Soun-shik
Chang
Class of 2001
Background:
Soun-shik Chang was born in 1939 in a small village in the
Chollanamdo Province, the southern-most part of Korea. He
graduated from a local middle and high school in the Province
and then studied at the College of Education of the Seoul
National University. In 1967, he graduated from the Graduate
School of Public Administration with a Master of Public Administration
degree. In 1994 he graduated from the National Defense University.
Professional
Experience:
Mr. Chang started his career as a government official at the
Safety and Health Department of the Ministry of Labor in 1967.
He was promoted to Director of the Safety and Health Department
in 1980.
In 1988,
he was promoted to the position of Director General for the
Regional Office of the Ministry of Labor. In 1996, he was
assigned to the Director General for Technology of the Korea
Occupational Safety and Health Agency, and in May 1999 he
took office as the President of the Korea Elevator Safety
Center.
Career
Highlights:
When Mr. Chang began his career in 1967, Korea was at the
start of a profound transition as its economy moved from an
agricultural to an industrial base. In 1980, Mr. Chang, having
attained the position of Director of the Safety and Health
Department, recognized that entirely new systems were needed
to address the new safety issues that were emerging. Contending
that workers' safety and health could not be secured unless
it was systemized by an idependent legal structure, he drafted
a bill which eventually, through much perseverence and diligent
work, was enacted as the Industrial Safety and Health Law,
made effective December 31, 1981.
Five years
later, as the demands of industry continued to increase, he
introduced the concept of an independent and professional
organization to deal with workers' safety and health. He drafted
the legal framework for such an agency and worked ceaselessly
until the National Assembly passed the bill that created,
in May, 1987, the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency.
He created
a structure to facilitate the working environment measurement.
He was responsible for adoption of the health diagnosis system
for workers. He was responsible for the ILO project which
established a safety and health research center in Korea that
came into being in 1977 as the Labor Science Research Institute,
which was later merged into the Korea Occupational Safety
and Health Research Institute.
Mr. Chang's
accomplishments were recognized by the Ministry of Health
and Welfare in December 1972 and by the Ministry of Labor
in August 1986. In June, 1977, the government awarded him
the Order of Service Merit, Green Stripes (Award No. 7804).
