By Yun Suh-young

On average about six workers died each day last year due to work related injuries, according to statistics from the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA).

This is the highest among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). About 1.07 workers died out of 10,000 people in 2008.

This is three times the number for the U.S. at 0.38 and 18 times the number in the U.K. which stood at 0.06 the same year.

Saturday (April 28) was the 17th annual International Commemoration Day (ICD) for Dead and Injured Workers. Laborers’ union and workers’ groups in Korea held a ceremony in downtown Seoul to mark the day.

In Korea, the conditions for workers are still bleak.

The number of workers who died in 2011 from a work-related injury recorded 2,114 and the percentage of acquiring injury was at 65 percent, KOSHA statistics showed. In 2010, the death toll was at 2,200 and in 2009 at 2,181. The percentage of acquiring an injury at work stood at 69 percent in 2010 and 70 percent in 2009.

“Every year, 2.2 million workers die worldwide. Every day, over 5,000 workers become victims of profit seeking companies.

But these deaths aren’t recognized as serious although the death toll is as high as any that would amount from a war,” members of the civic activist groups said during a press conference held Saturday in front of Sejong Center for the Performing Arts to commemorate workers killed by industrial accidents.