Friendly Workplace
Occupational Safety and Health Committee
The Occupational Safety and Health Committee is composed of the head of the works, unit supervisors, occupational safety and health management personnel, occupational health nurses, and representatives assigned by the enterprise unions, with the factory director serving as the chairman and the director of the Labor Safety Center as the management representative. Worker representatives are elected by the respective enterprise unions, accounting for an average of 41% of the total number of committee members.
The Committee is convened once a month to discuss issues related to potential risks of safety and health in the works, deliberate and track safety and health meeting affairs, and make decisions and give instructions concerning safety and health related issues in the Company. The Committee is convened once a quarter in the Head Office. The scope of the Committee’s review includes safety policies, safety and health management plans, education and training implementation plans, health management, occupational disease prevention, health promotion, occupational disaster investigation reports, contractor management, and other matters related to occupational safety and health management.
In terms of health and safety issues, in addition to the communication and coordination with workers for solutions in Committee meetings, education and training for new employees, monthly industrial safety inspection, safety observation, safety talks, annual health checkups, and health management. Activities such as industrial safety promotion meetings and propaganda of occupational preventions of the Labor Inspection Office are organized on an irregular basis.
Contractor Management
To strengthen the prevention of accidents and losses caused by accidents of the contractors’ workers or temporary workers engaged in construction or repair work in the plant areas, the Company has included activities and personnel of contractors and vendors into the risk identification and assessment procedures. We have also established the Contractor Safety and Health Management Regulations, requiring all personnel to recognize potential hazards related to their specific work tasks before commencing operations. Compliance with applicable safety laws and regulations is strictly enforced to ensure workplace safety. In addition, our contracting agreements include specific provisions related to OHS operations, as well as the management and penalties for safety regulations. Any fines collected from such violations are allocated exclusively to safety-related improvement, incentive programs, or safety education and training.
In addition, regular inspections and audits are carried out on the subcontractors stationed in the works. The Labor Safety Office makes annual assessment, and those who fail the assessment shall not renew the contract. Workers from the subcontractors are also required to participate in safety and health education and training courses held in the works or participate in the health lectures in the meetings of the Occupational Safety and Health Committee and the coordination of important matters in the coordination organization meetings to be informed of new knowledge of safety and health for bilateral communication.
Performance of Industrial Safety
The goal of occupational accident management in all plants aims at zero-disaster as an indicator for enhancing various safety activities in the works. Zero-disaster related activities are supported by providing incentives and commending units with outstanding results. Cause analysis is conducted for each occupational accident in the Occupational Safety and Health Committee meeting, and improvement measures are also presented. In addition to the discussion of the analysis and corrective measures of the occupational accidents in the previous month reviewed by the president, the Audit Office and the Labor Safety Centers in all factories will also conduct joint cross-plant inspection every quarter and report to the president the deficiencies and corrective measures. For major occupational accidents that require hospitalization, the section chief and the division head should conduct monthly and factory director and deputy factory director should conduct autonomous management every two months and report to the president for review. For the accident victims, in addition to necessary first-aid and rescue, the Company will also do its best to assist the employees or their family members with necessary medical care and bereavement allowances.
Reducing Risk of Occupational Accidents
The Company followed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s technical guidelines for all safety and hazards around the workplace caused by operating activities inside and outside the factory area (including routine and non-routine activities, workers and visitors entering the factory area, personal behavior, and other human factors), and set up the safety and health hazard identification risk assessment regulations and related procedures for risk assessment, the implementation of identification, assessment and control of the work environment and hazards. All the personnel performing hazard identification and hazard assessment are provided with education and training to ensure the quality of identification.
Identification and assessment results have to be classified into different levels for control. For the unacceptable medium- and high-level of risks, actions and measures are taken to reduce the level of the risk. For the accidents that have happened, hazard identification and assessment have to be done again, the operating standards have to be revised, and the education and training of hazard awareness and identification should be implemented to conduct risk classification management and control to ensure the effectiveness of the management system. In 2024, hazard identification and risk assessment were carried out, and a total of 19 cases with medium and high risks were identified. Management plans were formulated for improvement and have been implemented respectively.
Control and Prevention of Abnormalities
In terms of the operating mechanism of accident management, electronic information management system and on-site incident drills are utilized for the statistics of occupational accidents and cause analysis, and relevant supervisors and parties jointly convene an investigation meeting to thoroughly understand the problem. The investigation results are then used for remedial and improvement measures to eliminate the causes of similar incidents to prevent them from happening again. In addition, all the incidents will be submitted to the Occupational Safety and Health Committee meetings for review. Responsible units shall re-examine the risk assessment in accordance with the safety and health hazard identification risk assessment regulations and make revisions when necessary to establish a complete notification and investigation system.
In view of the unsafe behavior and unsafe environment that cause harm, the AI Team of the Information Technology Division applies AI image automatic detection, surround view monitoring system, and AI automatic protection device to stop operation when detecting the entry of personnel, and warning notification or PA loudspeaker dispersion is immediately made to control or manage unsafe behavior or environment for improved on-site safety and health management.
In accordance with the relevant operating procedures for emergency response, when there is concern of immediate danger in the workplace, the employer and the person in charge of the workplace shall stop the operation at once and evacuate the workers to a safe place. When a worker discovers immediate danger while performing his duties, he shall stop the operation on his own and retreat to a safe place without jeopardizing the safety of other workers, and immediately reports to his direct supervisor. The Company will never dismiss, transfer, or fail to pay the wages during the period of the work suspension or impose unfavorable punishment to the work under the circumstances mentioned above.
Environmental Monitoring and Disaster Prevention Drills
The Company set up work environment monitoring plans and flowchart in accordance with the “Measures for Implementing Exposure Monitoring in the Workplace”, and a quality work environment monitoring agency is appointed for the implementation of regular work environment monitoring on the Head Office and the all Worksnote, and the items include noise, comprehensive temperature heat index carbon dioxide, chemical substances (manganese compounds, hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, butanone, n-Hexane, Toluene compounds), illuminance monitoring, and dust. Improvement will be immediately made if there is any abnormality found in the monitoring results to protect the health of the personnel.
To improve the on-site emergency response capabilities in all the works to avoid or reduce injuries of personnel, property loss and environmental impact, various emergency response drills are conducted according to the on-site operation risks. In 2024, a total of 33 sessions of emergency response and disaster prevention drills were held (14 emergency response drills, 19 firefighting drills), and the content included emergency response drills for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tanks, wastewater treatment equipment failures, steelmaking/rolling air pollution, emergency response drills for personnel injured by falling objects and falling into coma, emergency response drills for personnel in shock during operations, confined space operations and earthquake escape emergency response drills, self-defense fire prevention education and training, disaster prevention and escape drills, etc.
Health Examination and Care for the Employees' Health
The Company provides employee health checkups exceeding the frequency and items required by law, including general health examination and special health examination. In our Taoyuan Works, expanded lung cancer screening and free bone density testing are provided, with professional physicians conducting health management and statistical analysis based on the medical examination reports. The health promotion policy for the following year is also planned to provide comprehensive health care and assist our employees with the implementation of self-care management.
In all the works, the on-site physician will arrange health consultations for our employees. In addition, personnel whose health management is of level 2 or higher in the special health examination will be arranged with health lecturers and individual doctor consultations. In addition, to prevent and control the risks associated with obesity and metabolic syndromes such as hypertension, hyperglycemia, and hyperlipidemia, the Company organized health lectures on “Conquering Metabolic Syndrome-Obesity Prevention and Weight Loss”, “Cardiovascular Diseases- Prevention of Myocardial Infarction, Obesity, and the Three Hypers (Hypertension, Hyperglycemia, and Hyperlipidemia), etc. Moreover, we also cooperate with medical institutions to administer influenza and COVID-19 vaccines to improve the immune protection of the group with “three hypers” and reduce the risk of complications, severe illness and death. In addition, employees identified as being at risk for the “Three Hypers” (Hypertension, Hyperglycemia, and Hyperlipidemia) in the annual health examination are scheduled for health consultations. Follow-ups are conducted as needed to monitor their medical visits and medication situations.
The works control the hazards of the working environment and the employees’ health through Measures for Implementing Exposure Monitoring in the Workplace and the special health examination, and the employees’ relevant knowledge of emergency treatment of burns and scalds is also promoted. Monthly health consultations are provided to employees by the on-site physicians. If an abnormal case is found, the Labor Safety Center will conduct case management, and the physician of occupational medicine will provide one-on-one consultation to comprehensively evaluate the factors of the employees’ work nature, lifestyles, family history and others to provide suggestions for improvement for the employees and the Company. There has not been any case of occupational disease among our employees over the past 5 years, and there has been no occurrence of occupational disease among workers (whose work and workplace are under the control of the organization).
