Samsung’s Recent Moves Highlight Inability To Clean Its House of Malfeasance

Samsung is deploying a new set of ploys to circumvent even the basic legal and fiduciary obligations to provide for worker safety and corporate governance.

Samsung found itself facing a barrage of public criticism in 2017 when the scion of its founding family, Lee Jae-yong, also known as Jay Y. Lee outside the country, was arrested for embezzlement and bribery.  However, for South Korea’s largest conglomerate, the dust began to settle when Jay had his sentence waived in Feb. 2018 and one of his company men landed in jail after claiming sole  responsibility for years of union-busting in Dec. 2019.  There has since been a shift in attitude and policy.  And three recent developments reveal Samsung’s efforts to undo the improvements it had to made because of public pressure.

Compliance Commission: Bogus or Sinecure?  

Chung June-young: a judge or a deal maker?

In Dec. 2019-Jan. 2020, appellant-court judge Chung June-young said he would factor it in his ruling and sentencing for Jay if Samsung strengthened its compliance system to the point of “being feared by its own leader.”

Samsung fondly and promptly responded to what appears to be the worst offer by a judge in the country’s legal history—it said it would form a Compliance Commission composed entirely of outsiders.  The commission is chaired by Kim Ji-hyung, retired Supreme Court judge, who arbitrated the settlement between Samsung and SHARPS in 2018.  However, the commission does not seem to have authority to monitor compliance across the Samsung corporate empire of about 63 affiliates that sells almost everything from automobile insurance to smartphones.

Samsung offers little explanation as to why it needs an ad hoc structure given pre-existing compliance officers in-house and an audit committee formed by the board of directors—unless otherwise it needs to woo the judge and assuage public opinion to secure leniency for Jay.  Whether the commission can trump these already existing compliance structures remains unanswered, as the scope of its authority is has not disclosed.  As of this posting, the commission’s website at samsungcompliance.com remains offline.

Judge Chung overreached his authority in making the offer. On Feb. 24, 2019, prosecutors filed a preemptive challenge in a move to remove Chung from the case.

New Chairman:  Outsider or Insider?

Bahk Jae-wan, the inside man

On Feb. 21, 2020, Samsung Electronics named outsider and former finance minister, Bahk Jae-wan as board chairman, filling the vacancy left by an executive chairman, now in jail for union-busting activities.  The appointment was a superficial move by Samsung to paint its board as more publicly accountable.

Even a cursory look at Bahk’s bio betrays Samsung’s ploy.  He is not an outsider, but an insider deeply involved in the inner circles of bureaucrats nurtured by Samsung.  In 2010, as labor minister, Bahk publicly denied “statistical relatedness” between Samsung’s blood-disorder cluster and working conditions.  Only two years later, a government probe of Samsung lab plants confirmed that the disease-cluster was work-related.

After retirement from politics in 2014, he returned to his on-and-off job as professor at Sungkyunkwan, the university owned and controlled by a Samsung foundation.  As a financial and labor bureaucrat and as a professor, Bahk frequently curried favor with Samsung in the form of free rounds of golf, meals, and even job references for his associates, according to an expose in April 2018 by independent news collective Newstapa.

Trade Secrets vs. Workers Safety

On Feb. 20, 2020, the Seoul administrative court ruled in favor of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, allowing it to withhold certain information with respect to the chemicals used in chip production.

By law, the company is required to biannually enumerate the exposure levels of about 190 hazardous chemicals to the government.  In 2018, the civic court ordered the government to fully release such information for Samsung’s LCD factories, despite the company’s fierce opposition.

Samsung brought the case to the administrative court, which ignored judicial precedent and sided with the tech behemoth, which alleged that its rivals can use any such full disclosure to “deduce” trade secrets related to chip production.  SHARPS has campaigned for disclosures of hazardous chemicals because they can be used as evidence for workers compensation petitions for Samsung’s blood-disorder cluster victims.

The advocacy group appealed the decision.

The latest ruling is in tune with a revised trade secret law that took effect on Feb. 21.  The amendment exempts companies from the disclosure of information on hazardous materials should they prove it as core national technology. It does not spell out what constitutes “a core national technology,” but empowers them to lodge criminal complaints and seek punitive damages for any such disclosure.

In a press conference held jointly by SHARPS on Feb 24, 2020, fourteen lawmakers said they would undo the amendment as soon as they can.  “Unknown to us, controversial clauses were deeply hidden in the amendment” said the lawmakers in a statement.  “We repent our negligence in the legislation and take responsibility.”

SHARPS will also petition the Constitutional Court to determine the constitutionality of the amendment.

 

 

 

 

South Korea Revises Trade Secret Law To Curb Workers Compensation

South Korea’s lawmakers, conservative and liberal alike, unanimously pass a bill hampering workers’ ability to petition for workers compensation.

 

South Korea’s legislature all but unanimously approved a controversial amendment to an industrial information law allowing corporations to arbitrarily conceal any information that can be used as evidence for workers compensation petitions.

Samsung’s Amendment

The amendment includes two clauses that encapsulate the recurrent rationales used by Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. against its former employees who seek workers compensation after falling victim to occupational diseases, said Lim Ja-woon, attorney with SHARPS, in an op-ed.

First, the one clause provides that information on core national technologies should not disclosed, but it does not clearly define what constitutes “core national technologies.”  During two separate workers compensation cases in 2017-18, Samsung attempted to defy a court order for the release of chemicals used in chip or LCD production, citing them as “core national technologies.” In the 2018 case, the commerce ministry backed Samsung’s position despite weak legal ground.

In both cases, SHARPS defeated the tech giant.  However, the new clause, which carries prison sentences of up to three years for non-compliance, will make any such win unlikely.

Also, the clause also likely runs counter to an existing one requiring trade secrets to be disclosed to protect life and health, noted Lim.

The other clause enables corporations to file criminal complaints and seek punitive damages for the disclosures of even lawfully acquired industrial information.  The clause, in letters and spirit, is similar to highly noticeable sentences in the first letter Samsung sends to new workers compensation petitioners, said the attorney.

Amid Rising Trade Tensions with Japan

The amendment to the Act on Prevention of Divulgence and Protection of Industrial Technology was pushed through with the speed of light in the country’s notoriously cacophonous National Assembly.  On Aug. 2, 2019, the bill was passed by a margin of 206 vs. four abstentions, only one month after it was finalized.

Even lawmakers of the two minority progressive parties, the Justice and the Minjung parties, voted for the bill, with no public debate.  The government’s own press statement did not make any reference to the two clauses.

“SHARPS did not openly oppose the bill,” said a Justice Party spokesperson in a statement released to the workplace safety advocacy group.  “The regressive clauses were not fully noticed by [the party].”  “It was passed at a time of rising trade tensions with Japan,” said the person.

In a recent court hearing over workers compensation, a Samsung attorney rejected a request for information disclosure, citing the amendment, according to Lim.

The amendment will take effect on Feb. 21, 2020.

 

 

 

A Samsung Cluster Victim Wins Workers Comp After 10 Years of Campaigning

Han Hye-kyung, a Samsung cluster victim, 41 years old, has campaigned for ten years to receive her workers compensation

A victim of occupational disease contracted while at Samsung has won her workers compensation after ten years of efforts to get through a legal thicket often rigged in favor of corporate interests.

On June 5, Han Hye-kyung was notified of the approval of her workers compensation by KCOMWEL.  Han, now 41 years old, was diagnosed with a brain tumor at the age of 27 in 2005.  Four years earlier, in 2001, she resigned from Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., where she had handled hazardous chemicals while soldering together LCD parts for six years since 1995.  Han was only 17 years old and still in high school when she began to work at Samsung.

War of Attrition

In 2009, Han, with her single mother, Kim Si-nyeo, petitioned for workers compensation, and was quickly denied.  The mother-and-daughter duo spent the next six years fighting, until their last legal recourse was exhausted.

It was a war of attrition waged by Samsung and the government against two women who found themselves under great financial and emotional distress to prove the work-relatedness of Han’s tumor.

However, in 2017, South Korea’s supreme court ordered KCOMWEL to posthumously pay workers compensation to a Samsung worker who died of a brain tumor, shifting some of the burden of proof for work-relatedness to the corporation and the regulator, and away from workers compensation petitioners.

The landmark ruling paved the way for Han to request the re-evaluation of her workers compensation with KCOMWEL, which finally decided in her favor two years later.

Activism 

Han, who makes use of a wheelchair after a botched surgery, and her mother Kim, are active members of SHARPS.  Only a few of SHARPS’ countless pickets, protests and rallies have occurred without the mother pushing the daughter’s wheelchair.  The two women withstood heat waves and cold snaps to help keep SHARPS’ sit-in going for 1,023 days in 2015-2018.  In November 2018, a once-invincible Samsung finally caved in and promised a compensation scheme for cluster victims.

Temptation

In 2013, Samsung executives surreptitiously offered Kim KRW 1 billion (U$847,100) and full medical coverage upfront on condition that she and her daughter severs ties with SHARPS.  The financially drained mother was tempted, but the daughter resisted.  Emotions ran wild, and the argument became violent: the mother slapped the daughter twice across the face.  The daughter cried, “I cannot betray Lee Jong-ran.”  Lee is a labor attorney with SHARPS.  The mother soon had to admit that she couldn’t either.

Concert  

To celebrate Han’s long-awaited win, SHARPS will host a small concert on June 14 in a Seoul café, where the mother and the daughter will sing an old K-pop tune, ‘The Rose.’  Just as the lyrics of the song say, they are the rose with refreshing thorny stems.

If you are lucky enough to be in Seoul on that day, you are invited (See the following poster).

 

S. Korean Gov’t Admits “Relatedness of Fatalities and Illnesses” in Semiconductor Industry

On a summer day during their 1,023-day sit-in at Samsung’s headquarters, Han Hye-kyung, a Samsung cluster victim, and her mother are dancing to a remake of the 70s disco hit ‘I Will Survive.’  The government’s acknowledgement of the “relatedness” of many workers’ blood disorders will likely expedite proceedings for their workers compensation.

Workers fell sick and died due to exposure to hazardous chemicals in their chip labs, Korea Workers Compensation & Welfare Service (KCOMWEL) concluded on May 22, after reviewing ten years of epidemiological data.

A Decade

The government entity tracked blood-disorder cases and analyzed risks among workers who worked in the chip industry between 2007 and 2017, KCOMEWEL said.  “The two types of blood disorder, leukemia and non-Hodgkin Lymphoma victimized chip workers who have worked in the industry before 2010.”

“We could not exactly determine hazardous materials or their exposure levels,” added the agency, “However, their working conditions contributed to the incidences of [the illnesses].”

KCOMWEL collected data from about 200 thousand workers who worked, in 2007-2010, at chip labs at four corporations including Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and SK Hynix.

Trigger:  The Death of A Young Worker

Spurred by the death in 2007 of Hwang Yu-mi, the first known victim of Samsung’s blood disorder cluster, the findings of KCOMEL’s first-ever comprehensive epidemiological probe into an industry will likely streamline workers compensation proceedings for many victims still awaiting rulings or seeking retrial of their rejected petitions.

Lately Available

For SHARPS, KCOMEL’s acknowledgement of the “relatedness” validated its ten years of campaigning for cluster victims at Samsung and other chipmakers in South Korea.

“This probe depended only on lately available data,” said Hwang Sang-ki, a SHARPS founder and the father of Yu-mi.  “It took eleven years to see these findings,” Mr. Hwang added.  “Law should change to have the government to share the burden of proof with workers compensation petitioners.”

Said SHARPS in a press release on May 22, “The probe still left things to be desired.”  “It did not investigate temporary workers,” it continued.  “It did not clearly determine what caused the blood disorders [among the workers].”

The following are key takeaways from the KCOMWEL probe:

• Female chip workers are 1.19 times more likely than the average population and 1.55 more likely than average workers to fall victim to leukemia;

• They are 1.19 times more likely than the average population and 1.55 times more likely than average workers to fall victim to non-Hodgkin Lymphoma;

• More female workers ages 20-24 developed a blood disorder than male engineers; and

• Female workers who began to work before 2010 are at the highest risk of developing a blood disorder.

 

This post is re-posted after “work-relatedness” and “electronics industry” were changed to “relatedness” and “semiconductor industry” to better reflect the wording of KCOMWEL’s probe.   

 

Samsung Has Put SHARPS Activists Under Surveillance, Court Records Reveal

Lee Jong-ran (right), labor attorney with SHARPS, helps Hwang Sang-ki (left), a SHARPS founder, put on a clean suit ahead of a rally against Samsung in 2016. Samsung listed Lee and Hwang as “persons of interest,” and put them under surveillance.  SHARPS activists often don clean suits to highlight the work hazards of Samsung’s chip labs.

 

The Samsung corporate star chamber has flouted laws and placed SHARPS under watch even at a time when the advocacy group and the company began dialogue, independent daily Kyunghyang reported on April 18, citing court records.

Secretive Office

Two confidential Samsung documents surfaced during a criminal hearing on April 16 for 32 Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd directors and executives indicted for allegations of illegal union-busting, confirming long-held beliefs that Samsung had placed SHARPS under illicit surveillance.

The two records were among a trove of documents the government seized two years ago from the Future Strategy Office of the Samsung Business Group, the secretive office of 200 staff handpicked and used by the conglomerate’s founding Lee family to perpetuate its control of 63 affiliates.

Samsung’s Fears of a Union and Two Comic Books

In one document, the office made a list of juyo inmul, or “persons of interest,” including Hwang Sang-ki—a SHARPS founder and father of a publicly known victim of Samsung’s blood-disorder cluster—and Lee Jong-ran, SHARPS’s labor attorney.  The document included such private information as photos of the two activists, their national ID numbers, and their descriptions as well as those of their personal friends, according to Kyunghyang which reviewed the documents.

The document was drafted in late 2012, when Samsung contacted SHARPS to start its first dialogue.

In the other, the office laid out its own analysis of A Dustless Room and The Smell of Humanity, the two graphic narratives about Samsung’s occupational disease cluster and victims.  In 2012 when the books came out, even independent publications refused to run advertisements for fear of Samsung’s retaliation.

“As the cluster issue gained publicity,” Kyunghyang quoted a prosecution document as saying, “[the Future Strategy Office] watched not only employees at risk of unionization, but also SHARPS.”

No Future for Future Strategy

The Future Strategy Office was placed under public scrutiny in 2016 when a probe by the special prosecutor revealed its pivotal role in Samsung’s heir apparent Lee Jae-yong’s bribery of then-president Park Geun-hye.

In early 2017, findings of the investigations landed Lee and Park in jail.  A year later, Lee was released as his sentence was waived. However, a highest court ruling is still pending for him.

In the period leading to the pair’s arrests, the government executed search warrants on the Future Strategy Office, which led the seizure of hundreds of documents proving many illegalities Samsung committed apart from the aforementioned briberies.

In September 2018, some of these records led to the indictments of Lee Sang-hoon, executive chairman of Samsung Electronics, and 31 other executives, for allegedly sabotaging a unionization effort at its network of after-sale repair services in 2013-2016.  During these years, Samsung’s brutal union-bashing, coupled with harsh working conditions, left at least three workers to die in accidents or commit suicide in protest.

In 2014, Samsung allegedly used a police officer to bribe the father of a worker who committed suicide in protest of its union busting to steal his body from the morgue.

In February 2017, Samsung said it would dissolve the Future Strategy Office.

As of this writing, SHARPS is still discussing what legal action it should take based on the new revelations.

 

 

Young Woman Worker Dies Amid Employer’s Attempt to Invalidate Her Workers Compensation

Lee Ga-young, 26 years old, died of lymphoma on April 8, 2019, after four years of on-the-job chemical exposure at Seoul Semiconductor, an LED maker in Ansan, Korea. While she was in her sickbed, the employer sought to have her workers compensation nullified.

A young female worker has died due to the cumulative effects of her on-the-job chemical exposure, amid threats by her employer seeking to invalidate her workers compensation.

On April 8, 2019, Lee Ga-young, 26 years old, died of malignant lymphoma, about two years after her diagnosis with the fatal condition, and about four years after she began to work at LED maker Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd, where she mixed mold parts since February 2015.

Chemically Drenched Death

Lee worked ten- or twelve-hour shifts mixing such high-risk, high-temperature silicone materials as OE66030A and OE6630B, which emit formaldehyde and benzene at 150°C or higher.  She was not warned of or educated on the risks of these materials.

Two years after her first diagnosis, in Sept. 2018, the malignant lymphoma returned with a vengeance.  A month later, her petition for workers compensation was approved.  However, hematopoietic stem cell transplants in Jan. 2019 turned out to be too late and too little to save her.  Lee died three months later.

Common Tragedy 

Lee’s death adds to an ongoing, commonplace tragedy in South Korea’s electronics industry, in which on-the-job chemical exposure continues to leave young workers dead or impaired while corporations shirk responsibility on the pretext of trade secrets.

However, her death came with a nasty twist.

In Jan., when Lee was probably receiving the transplants, Seoul Semiconductor filed a lawsuit seeking the nullification of her workers compensation.

It is almost impossible to understand why the world’s fifth largest LED maker made such a move against a worker who fell fatally ill while helping it generate $870 million in annual revenue.

Nothing to Win, Nothing to Lose

Management equated Lee’s workers compensation with an attempt at corporate defamation, according to SHARPS, because it considers Seoul Semiconductor a good corporation in full compliance with safety regulations.  The LED maker was not alone in attacking worker compensation petitioners.  In Jan. 2019, a new law took effect to curb the rise in these corporate abuses by delinking workers compensation payouts from rises in workers comp premiums.

Seoul Semiconductors stands little chance of winning the nullification.  However, it probably believed it had little to lose if the purpose of the lawsuit was to harass the victim in a sickbed and her family.

On April 9, in meeting with Lee’s family, a Seoul Semiconductor representative director said he would discuss at the coming management-labor meeting whether to withdraw the lawsuit.

On the morning of April 10, SHARPS issued an open letter to the management and labor council of the company, calling for the company to withdraw the lawsuit.  Seoul Semiconductor said in the afternoon it would comply with the demand.

 

 

More than 100 Occupational Disease Victims of Samsung Likely Remain Uncompensated

On March 4, 2019, with SHARPS’s assistance, 14 occupational disease victims of Samsung collectively petitioned for workers compensation.

A majority of more than 200 new occupational-disease cases from Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and its affiliates are not covered by the compensation program that the conglomerate launched last year as part of arbitration with SHARPS, the labor advocacy group found.

New Victims

During the three months since the launch of the compensation scheme in Nov. 2018, SHARPS profiled 206 occupational disease victims from Samsung and a variety of its related companies or contractors, about 450 victims were profiled over the course of 11 years between 2007 and 2018, said the advocacy group in a press release on March 4.

About 127, or about 62 percent of the new victims, won’t benefit from the current compensation program because their diseases or workplaces are not stipulated to be covered by the program.  Also, on what appears to be a technicality, their diagnoses fell outside the timeframe covered by the program.

 

Falling Through the Cracks

Among such victims is Hong Kyong-hwa, 53 years old, who worked at a Samsung semiconductor lab in 1988-1992.  In 1997, about five years after her resignation from the company, she was diagnosed with lupus, the disease that was such a rarity it was scantly documented at that time in South Korea.  In 2018, about 22 years after her departure from Samsung, Hong was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She could not be compensated for either disease because she was not diagnosed with lupus within five years after her departure and with breast cancer within 15 years to be eligible for the compensation scheme.

Cho Seong-kwan, 43 years old, worked in a Samsung home appliance unit between 1998 and 2006.  In 2003, he received bone marrow transplants after being diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.  He has since suffered chronic depression.  However, Hwang is not entitled to compensation under the program because his workplace is not within its scope which only includes semiconductor and LCD units.

Likewise, a 31-year-old researcher, identified by his surname Hwang, who died of leukemia three years of on-the-job chemical exposure at Samsung SDI, is not eligible because his company is not covered under the scheme.

Shift in Focus  

In a shift in focus, SHARPS is diversifying beyond holding Samsung directly responsible, by initiating campaigns to strengthen regulations to thwart workplace hazards and corporate abuse.  “Legislation must be strengthened to heavily penalize corporations when there are workplace fatalities,” weekly Hankyoreh 21 quoted Hwang Sang-ki, a SHARPS founder, as saying.

SHARPS will proactively assist the victims ineligible for the Samsung plan in petitioning for workers compensation, Kong Jeong-ok, a medical doctor and a SHARPS founder, told the liberal weekly magazine.

On March 4, with SHARPS’s assistance, 14 victims collectively filed for workers compensation.

As of March 2019, SHARPS has profiled 616 occupational-disease victims of Samsung and other electronics makers. Among them, only 137 received workers compensation while 185 died.

 

Young Samsung SDI Researcher Dies of Leukemia After 3 Years of On-the-Job Chemical Exposure

A young researcher died of what appears to be occupationally caused leukemia at Samsung SDI, where a corporate motto reads, “SDI practices human respect.”  Source: Samsung SDI Website capture

 

A young researcher has died of leukemia only three years after he began work at Samsung SDI Co. Ltd, the conglomerate’s electronic materials unit.

The otherwise healthy 31-year-old researcher, identified only by his surname Hwang, died on Jan. 29, about 13 months after his diagnosis with leukemia, SHARPS said in a press statement on Jan. 30.

A Deadly Career

In May 2014, upon earning a graduate degree in chemistry, Hwang took a job at Samsung SDI, assisting in developing etch materials for semiconductor processing.  In Dec. 2017, he was diagnosed with acute leukemia, at which time he petitioned for workers compensation and requested epidemiologic investigations of his labs.  Thirteen months later, he died while awaiting a first reply from the KCOMWEL.

Lethal Exposure

Just as with many Samsung victims before him, Hwang was outfitted on the job with little protective gear.  The following takeaways from the workers compensation petition he wrote reveal a likely lethal level of on-the-job chemical exposure:

• I worked in a cleanroom at the Suwon plant of Samsung SDI from May 2014 onward.
• I was responsible for assessing mixtures of aromatic polymers such as benzene and naphthalene.
• I used hands to douse wafers with photosensitive liquids.  When the liquids vaporized and spread to the 1-meter radius of my workstation, the residues were so rampant that the area turned red.
• When I coated semiconductor substrates with photoresistors, massive odors penetrated the mask and assailed my nostrils.

They Knew All Along

Hwang is not only the latest victim of Samsung’s occupational disease cluster, he is one of the first known victims among researchers who had been considered better paid and protected than young female line workers who comprise the majority of the victims.

In Nov. 2015 in the South Korean city of Gwangju, this blogger, who anonymously updates these blogs as a volunteer, had the rare opportunity to question a Samsung executive-turned politician about the cluster.  When this writer asked what she, as a female politician with strong ties with Samsung, could do for the terminally ill women workers, the politician answered: “It’s not that only factory workers were dead or sick.  Researchers died, too.”

While sending shivers down the spine of this writer, her remarks suggested that Samsung could have at least some knowledge of the cluster from its inception.  After her failed bid for a National Assembly seat, she has a high-ranking job in the Moon Jae-in government.

Decades of Union Busting

Samsung SDI is not part of the compensation program agreed to by SHARPS and Samsung in Nov. 2018 as it focuses mainly on victims from semiconductor and LCD units.

Samsung SDI is infamous for union busting.  And its successful frustration of unionization drives means that likely victims of the cluster have no place to turn within their company.

Nothing better demonstrates the company’s anti-union brutality than the thirty-one years of agony wrought upon Lee Man-shin, a worker who attempted to form a union in 1987.  Samsung SDI sent him offshore in the early 1990s.  He had since been transferred to various locations globally until 2011.   The following year, the company fired Lee for his ongoing involvement with a unionization drive.

A company document, made in 2002 and leaked in 2014, showed Samsung SDI security staff tailed munje sawon, roughly translated “troublemakers”, and tapped their cell phones.

In 2014, the appeals court ruled in favor of Lee’s reinstatement.  With a highest-court ruling still pending, Lee, now 55 years old, still stages a sit-in at Samsung’s corporate headquarters in Seoul, where he and his unionists hold rallies on every Thursday.

Lee Man-shin (left) has been fighting for his union at Samsung SDI since 1987.  Source: hani.co.kr

New Movement

Hwang’s death came at a time when the gruesome on-the-job death of a young temporary worker kindled a new wave of protests against workplace hazards and job insecurity.

In Dec. 2017, Kim Yong-kyun, 24 years old, was killed at a thermal plant about 150 kilometers southwest of Seoul after being sucked into a coal conveyer belt and decapitated.  Kim was alone responsible for overseeing a high-speed one-mile-long conveyor belt, alternating 10-hour night and day shifts.  A temporary worker under a one-year contract, Kim was not offered protective gear or safety education.

Following his death, the country’s quarrelsome National Assembly quickly passed a long-dormant bill to strengthen workplace safety.  However, the emerging campaign calls for limiting the subcontracting of high-risk jobs and replacing temporary jobs with permanent ones with benefits and security.

The protesters set up an altar for Kim in central Seoul.  SHARPS and other labor advocates organized a hunger strike there.  Candlelight vigils are regularly held.

An English-language online petition drive is currently underway for Kim Yong-kyun.    

Kwon Young-eun, a SHARPS activist, spoke at a vigil on Jan. 30 for Kim Yong-kyun.  Source: SHARPS

Finally, Samsung Apologizes to Victims of Its Illness Cluster

 

 

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On Nov. 23, 2018 SHARPS finally extracted from Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. a meaningful apology for the deaths and illnesses caused by its unsafe working condition and an initiative to compensate the victims and improve workers safety.

It was likely the beginning of an end to an era, at least in South Korea, in which a corporate behemoth freely harmed chemically drenched young workers while churning out state-of-the-art electronic components.

And It was a first of its kind moment in the country’s labor history:  a historically unrepentant Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. finally caved in to a tenacious and agile campaign initiated by an average middle-aged taxi driver who went everywhere to find anyone who would listen to how he lost his otherwise healthy 21-year-old daughter to occupationally caused leukemia at the world’s largest chip lab.

Apology

“Our dear co-workers and their families have suffered for a long time,” said Kim Ki-nam, Samsung’s representative director responsible for device components, as requested by an earlier arbitration decision, “but Samsung Electronics did not wholeheartedly take care of them sooner.”

“In the past, Samsung Electronics did not sufficiently and completely manage the risk associated with health hazards at chip and LCD plants,” Mr. Kim said as he matter-of-factly read the apology in a press conference joined by victims and their families, many sobbing, and labor-department officials, as well as lawmakers who assisted Kim Ji-young, a former supreme-court justice, in steering the arbitration process.

After reading the apology, Mr. Kim took a deep bow and stepped off the podium to shake hands with SHARPS founder Hwang Sang-ki and other victims, one in a wheelchair and one with a white cane.  Mr. Hwang, the taxi driver, campaigned hard to shed light on his daughter Yumi’s occupationally caused death at Samsung.

On Nov. 20, 2007 when Mr. Hwang and tens of activists formed SHARPS, only five news outlets reported it. Among the five, only two were national newspapers.  Every year, Samsung pastes the front pages of the New Year issues of all national newspapers with its ad.

Response

Samsung’s 929-word apology did not exceed the arbitration decision even by a word.  It fell short of directly admitting that its working condition was the direct cause of mass illnesses and deaths.

“The apology made by Samsung’s representative director today, to be honest, is not sufficient to the victims and their families,” said Mr. Hwang in response to Mr. Kim’s remarks.  “Indeed, no apology will be sufficient, given countless deceptions and insults wrought upon SHARPS [by Samsung] and the agonies of occupational diseases and the pain in the loss of their beloved next-of kin.”

“However, I will take the apology today as Samsung’s resolution,” said Hwang as he read his hand-written three-page response.  “I am glad I can made good on the promise I made to my daughter Yumi.”  He went on saying: “However, I cannot forget the agonies my family and Yumi had to suffered from.  So many people share in the same pain.”

Compensation

As requested by the arbitration decision, Samsung has retained Jipyung, a Seoul-based law firm, to manage its new compensation program, said Mr. Kim.  Under the new program, the company will distribute up to KRW 150 million (U$132,667 at U$1: KRW 1,130) for the illnesses and deaths of former and current workers or contractors who grew ill after working for a full year at the company’s chip or LCD plants.

The program has expanded to include pulmonary conditions and birth defects, compared with the one Samsung launched in 2015 in a move to pit victims against one another over compensation.  Its stratagem backfired, as it prompted SHARPS to stage a sit-in at Samsung’s headquarters.

The increasingly high-profile protest lasted 1,023 days and became a global rallying point against Samsung’s corporate malfeasance.

Pointing to the fact that the program is limited to LCD and chip units, Mr. Hwang said: “Occupational-disease victims are not limited to Samsung’s LCD or chip unit….  I hope Samsung will launch a more comprehensive scheme for all victims [at home and abroad].”

Sweat and Toil

Separately, Samsung entrusted the Korean Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA), to manage KRW 50 billion ($$44.1 million) in funds it paid out to improve workers safety in the electronics industry.

“It is praiseworthy because it is not an easy decision for Samsung,” Mr. Hwang said, commenting on the fund.  “However, we must remember that the fund is made of the sweat and toil of workers.”

During the first three years of SHARPS in 2007-10, the police often harassed and arrested SHARPS activists. In March 2010, the police filmed all attendees of a funeral service for Park Jie-yeon, a Samsung employee who died of leukemia.

Milestones

As of June 2018, since its formation in Nov. 2007, SHARPS has profiled 320 victims of Samsung’s cluster.  Of them, 118 have died.  The advocacy group has, via petition or lawsuit, successfully helped 28 victims to get workers compensation.

Spurred by the arbitration decision, Han Hye-kyung, a wheelchair-bound victim of occupationally caused brain tumors and a leading member of SHARPS, is seeking retrial of her workers compensation case.

In 2014, the appeals court has turned down Ms. Han’s petition by shifting the burden of proof for the work-relatedness of her brain tumors from Samsung to her.  The ruling seemed to exhaust her legal recourse until Feb. 2017 when in a landmark ruling the same appeals court ruled that a Samsung LCD worker’s multiple sclerosis was caused by her on-the-job chemical exposure without seeking proof of work-relatedness from the plaintiff.

Anti-riot cops arrested seven SHARPS activists who attempted to march toward Samsung’s corporate headquarters after Ms. Park’s funeral service.  Gradually diminishing, the harassment continued until July 2013.

 

The following is a full translation of Mr. Hwang’s statement.  All text in brackets ([ ]) are added to aid comprehension:

First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to every single person who has worked hard to resolve such a difficult issue.  I appreciate Justice Kim Ji-hyung, the mediation committee’s chair, and its two members, Dr. Paik Do-myung and Ms. Jung Kang-ja for their resilience and tenacity in their mediation efforts.  I thank all our researchers.  Their advice made the compensation program possible.  I thank those lawmakers for exhorting and persuading Samsung to address the issue.  I thank the labor and civic activists who rolled up their sleeves to solve the issue as if their own.  I thank the countless volunteers for keeping our 1,023-day sit-in going, and numerous donors for donating money and food.

The apology made by Samsung’s representative director today, to be honest, is not sufficient to the victims and their families.  Indeed, no apology will be sufficient, given countless deceptions and insults wrought upon SHARPS [by Samsung] and the agony of occupational diseases and the pain in the loss of their beloved next-of kin.

However, I will take the apology today as Samsung’s resolution. Compared with its earlier one, Samsung’s new compensation program has expanded metrics to affect victims known and yet unknown to SHARPS.  This is fortunate.  However, it is could have included those who are still left out because they are belonged to a contractor or their illness is not covered by the program.

Samsung agreed to entrust the Korean Occupational Safety and Health Agency with KRW 50 billion ($$44.1 million) in funds it created [to improve workers safety in the electronics industry].  It is praiseworthy because it is not an easy decision for Samsung.  However, we must remember that the fund is made of the sweat and toil of workers.  I would like to ask the KOSHA to take the invaluable meaning of the fund seriously and properly spend it improving the safety and health of electronics workers.

We all still have unfinished tasks.  Occupational disease is not limited to Samsung Electronics’ chip and LCD units. There are workers who grew ill from hazard exposure at Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Samsung SDS, Samsung SDI and many other Samsung affiliates.  There are similar victims at Samsung’s home and overseas operations.  I hope Samsung will launch a more comprehensive scheme for all victims.

Had workers compensation approval not been so difficult, workers and their families would have not suffered this much.  To date, KCOMWEL has only brought despair upon us.  It is time to reform workers compensation and KCOMWEL so they can carry out their original mission of protecting the rights of industrial accident victims. The business owners must be thoroughly investigated and criminally penalized when there is an industrial accident at a place of business.

Prevention is more important than compensation when it comes to occupational disease.  The industrial safety and health law must be strengthened to ensure workers, and indeed all citizens, know and have a say in what chemicals are used [at their workplaces].  It is difficult for workers alone to monitor the safety of their workplaces and provide alternatives.  Especially, this is out of the question at non-unionized workplaces.  Samsung has been suppressing unions at home and abroad. Samsung, at least now, must apologize and promise to respect the right to unionization, Samsung and all other conglomerates have not improved difficult and risky jobs, but instead outsourced them to smaller companies at home and offshore.  To discontinue this, the government and the National Assembly should introduce legislation to strictly hold original vendors accountable, and corporations should set an example by providing accountability plans for safety and health.

I am glad that I can make good on the promise I made to my daughter Yumi.  However, I cannot forget the agonies my family and Yumi had to suffer from.  So many people are sharing in the same pain.  I would like to urge all who are to implement the compensation program or manage the fund to keep this [pain] in mind.  Thank you.

Samsung security guards routinely used excessive force in response to non-violent protests.  The picture was taken on March 9,. 2009 when SHARPS members demanded a meeting with Samsung executives.  Mr. Hwang (on the right in the picture) was thrown on to the floor.

The following is a full translation of the apology By Mr. Kim on Samsung’s behalf.  All text in brackets ([ ]) are added to aid comprehension:

We would like to express our gratitude to mediation committee chair Kim Ji-hyung, and its two members, Dr. Paik Do-myung and Ms. Jung Kang-ja, for in seeking social consensus, settling the issue that we could not solve for ten years.

And I appreciate SHARPS debating [with us] to address the issue against all odds.

Our dear co-workers and their families have suffered for a long time, but Samsung Electronics did not wholeheartedly take care of them sooner.

Our efforts fell short of sufficiently caring for their pain and promptly addressing it.

In the past, Samsung Electronics did not sufficiently and completely manage the risk associated with health hazards at chip and LCD plants.

We would like to use this opportunity to express our sincere apology to employees who suffered and their families.

With this opportunity, Samsung Electronics will be born again as a healthy and safe workplace.

I thank the lawmakers, Woo Won-shik, Sim Sang-jung, and Lee Jung-mi, and labor department director Ahn Kyung-duk and his colleagues for their interest, consultation, and advice for the difficult and long-unsolved issue.

Once again, we deeply apologize to those who are suffering.

We now would like to announce plans to implement the arbitration decision.

Samsung is promising to unconditionally implement the decision announced on Nov. 1, 2018.

We would like to implement the following details.

As agreed with SHARPS and decided by the mediation committee, we have retained law firm Jipyung, an independent body, to run the compensation commission.

SHARPS and we agreed that the commission will be chaired by Kim Ji-hyung, the firm’s managing partner.

As dictated by the arbitration decision and by a detailed plan by the commission chair, Samsung Electronics will, without interruption, make compensation until 2028.

As dictated by the arbitration decision, Samsung Electronics will post its apology and compensation coverage on its corporate website no later than Nov. 30, 2018.

Additionally, Samsung Electronics will, through the new compensation commission, send an apology to each payee to express our consolations.

Samsung Electronics and SHARPS agreed that the KRW 50 billion [$$44.1 million] fund it created for industrial safety will be entrusted with the KOSHA for their impartiality and expertise

Samsung Electronics will do its best effort to bring this social consensus, the result of your hard efforts, to fruition.

Thank you.

 

 

 

 

Samsung to Compensate Infirm workers from 1984 Onward, Arbitration Decision Demands

SHARPS was marching on when Samsung attempted to shirk its responsibility.  Source: The Hankyoreh

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. should compensate workers falling ill at its LCD and chip plants from 1984 onward, the Mediation Committee said on Nov. 1, 2018 in its final arbitration decision.  The committee also requests a Samsung representative director should publicly read an apology before an audience of its occupational victims and their families to fully express the conglomerate’s sincerity.

A Decade-Long Standoff

Samsung and SHARPS agreed in July that they would consent to the arbitration decision made by the Mediation Committee, an independent body formed in 2014 to broker a deal between the two parties. Though led by a retired supreme court justice, the committee’s efforts bore little fruit.  On Oct. 8, 2015, SHARPS began a sit-in at Samsung’s corporate headquarters after the corporation’s unilateral departure from the mediation structure.  The sit-in lasted 1,023 days until July 2018.

Sit-in and Behind-the-Scenes Efforts

The July agreement was the result of a behind-the-scenes, last-ditch effort by the committee to end a decade-long standoff in which a small labor advocacy group had tenaciously penetrated the wall of silence at the world’s largest tech firm which still boasts its anti-union policy as the core of its corporate culture.

“Since we agreed to do so in July, we will act on the arbitration decision,” Kong Jeong-ok, a medical doctor and a SHARPS founder, told the independent daily Hankyoreh.

“We will keep our promise to completely adhere to the mediator decision and will quickly come up with plans to implement the decision,” Reuters quoted Samsung as saying in a press statement.

Wider Coverage at the Cost of Individual Payouts 

The committee appears to have aim to adjust the ceiling of individual payouts to make sure that as many workers as possible for as wide a variety of diseases as possible will be compensated under its compensation framework.

“To prioritize [the plan’s] coverage, we lowered the ceiling for individual payouts and expanded to coverage to benefit a maximum number of victims,” the committee said in a press statement.

The committee increased the number of diseases covered by the scheme by including such pulmonary conditions as lung cancer.  Samsung launched a limited compensation scheme in 2015 when it walked out of the mediation process.  The scheme did not cover any pulmonary diseases, though workers began to die of lung cancer.  In Sept. 2016, KCOMWEL posthumously ruled that a Samsung worker’s lung cancer was occupationally caused.

Press Conference

The committee requested SHARPS and Samsung hold a press conference by the end of November to announce implementation plans and to have a Samsung representative director read the apology.

SHARPS has not released a formal statement yet.  The advocacy group will announce one at the press conference, likely scheduled for mid-November.

The following are key takeaways from the decision:

• Samsung will compensate former and current workers employed for a year at the semiconductor and LCD plants of Samsung and its contractors between May 17, 1984 and Oct. 31, 2028 who developed a variety of blood disorders, cancers, and pulmonary conditions. (May 17, 1984 was when Samsung’s first memory chip lab went online at the Kiheung plant, now the cluster of occupational disease).
• The ceiling for individual compensation is set at KRW150 million won (U$132,667 at U$1: KRW 1,130).
• Samsung will pay up to KRW 5 million ($4,400) for a genetic disorder occupationally caused to the victim.
• Samsung will pay KRW 3 million and KRW 1 million for stillbirths and miscarriages.
• The compensation ceiling and coverage period may be subject to renewal after the first 10 years.
• The 53 SHARPS-profiled workers have to the right to choose between the arbitrated compensation program or Samsung’s own scheme of 2015 for better payout.
• An independent commission should be formed to manage the new compensation program.
• A Samsung representative director should publicly read the company’s formal apology in the presence of victims and their families.
• Samsung should create KRW 50 billion (U$ 44.4 million) in funds aimed at the improvement of workers safety and health in the electronics industry.