The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) aims to maintain and promote the safety and health of workers. Additionally, violations of the act can result in imprisonment or fines, depending on the severity of the offense. This study examines whether the severity of OSHA violations is proportional to the size of the fines imposed. There are 120 items subject to fines, with penalties ranging from a minimum of 50,000 won to a maximum of 30 million won. To assess the severity of these items, pairwise comparisons were conducted, and the results were expressed numerically. In summary, no significant correlation was found between the severity of violations and the amount of the fines. Therefore, this study proposes calculating fines based on the severity of violations. In many small companies, resources (e.g., budget and manpower) are limited. Thus, greater attentions tend to be directed toward addressing items with higher fines. Consequently, aligning the severity of legal violations with the size of the fines may contribute to improving the industrial safety.

Notwithstanding the existence of The Act on the Establishment of Safe Laboratory Environment to prevent accidents in laboratory, it has not been secured substantive level of safety. Moreover, it is hard to apply to the scope of responsibility when the accident occurs in laboratory with The Occupational Safety and Health(OSH) Act. Thus, it is necessary to review and compare the OSH Act and The Act on the Establishment of Safe Laboratory Environment to reinforce the safety in laboratory.