Dozens of sustainability activists and labor-rights advocates from across the globe rallied at Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.’s headquarters in Seoul on June 20th, protesting inaction by the world’s largest electronics maker toward the occupational disease crisis at its plants.
About thirty international activists, who just wrapped up a three-day conference called Global Meeting on a Sustainable Electronics Industry, joined pickets mounted by bereaved families of the workers who died of a variety of blood disorders which they allegedly contracted during employment with Samsung Electronics and its subsidiaries.
Activists from the U.S., China, Indonesia, Mexico and other nations carried pickets written in their native languages. “We Want Green Phones, Not Killer Phones,” one English picket read. “No More Deaths at Samsung,” read a sign in Spanish.
“During the past three days [of the conference] we have come to better understand that electronics workers are facing similar issues globally, against electronics giants,” Lee Jong-ran, a certified labor attorney with SHARPS, said, emphasizing the need for international solidarity. “There was an outbreak of occupational disease at IBM factories in the Silicon Valley in the 1980s. The same outbreak is now taking place at Samsung, and it will be likely happening in other parts of the world. ”
“[At the conference] we made a resolution to spread the word to every part of the world about the horrid march of death unfolding at Samsung,” she concluded.
A sudden summer rain did not dampen the spirits of solidarity . “I wish for the agonies of Samsung victims to go away, and for the tears of their families to dry, just like a rain that has just come and gone,” Kong Jeong-ok, an MD with SHARPS, said in a voice choked with grief.
In related development, on June 19, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, an independent government human rights watchdog, filed a non-binding request with the South Korean government, calling for the Ministry of Employment and Labor to require employers to prove non-causality between employees’ working conditions and their diseases in order to deny requests for workers compensation.
Global Meeting on a Sustainable Electronics Industry took place outside Seoul on June 18-20, joined by representatives of more than thirty-six activist groups from ten countries.
SHARPS, Asia Monitoring Resource Centre of Hong Kong, Citizen of The Earth Taiwan, Good Electronics and the International Campaign for Responsible Technology jointly hosted the conference.
Dozens of global labor and sustainability activists on June 20 joined the bereaved families of Samsung victims mounting protests.
As of March 2012, SHARPS has profiled 155 workers who contracted various forms of leukemia, multiple sclerosis and aplastic anemia after employment in the electronics industry in South Korea.
As of June 2, 2012, of the 155, 63 have died. The majority of the workers, 138, were employed at Samsung Electronics, Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Samsung SDS—the three electronics affiliates of the Samsung Group, the country’s largest conglomerate. Among the 63 deaths were 56 Samsung employees.
Stop Samsung - No More Deaths! 
[…] activists on June 20 joined the daily picket mounted by bereaved families of Samsung leukemia victims, wrapping up Global Meeting on a Sustainable Electronics Industry. The first-ever global […]
[…] With no unions, little regulation and not even a fig-leaf of shareholder accountability there aren’t a whole lot of options to counter the power of the Lee Family. Social movement activism seems to be on the rise though. Last month a large meeting of three dozen activist networks took place in Seoul, making ten years of the International Campaign for Responsible Technology and they had Samsung squarely in their sights, holding a large protest outside the company’s headquarters. […]
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/544359.html
“The rash of illnesses is rapidly turning into an international issue, yet little has been done back home in terms of a response. A few days ago, objections by New Frontier Party lawmakers prevented the National Assembly’s Environment and Labor Committee from forming a subcommittee on the Samsung leukemia issue. The ruling party needs to stop pandering to the business community and investigate these illnesses at the parliamentary level. Samsung, for its part, should disclose information on its semiconductor plants and conduct an objective study of workplace conditions.”
[Editorial] Samsung must address hazardous factory conditions
Posted on : Jul.26,2012 11:53 KST
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The International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health (IJOEH) picked a Korean to appear on the cover of its latest edition. Hwang Yu-mi passed away from leukemia in 2007 at the age of twenty-three after working in the Samsung Electronics’ Giheung semiconductor factory in Gyeonggi province. Her death brought the issue of South Korea’s semiconductor workplace safety into public discussion, and became the first semiconductor factory worker to have her illness recognized in court as an industrial accident – a decision that came only after a grinding legal battle by her surviving family.
The journal also went into detail on the Samsung leukemia cases in an editorial, and printed a paper co-written by four female physicians, including Yonsei University Graduate School of Public Health professor Kim In-a and Korea Institute of Labor Safety and Health researcher Kong-Yoo Jeong-ok. Analyzing the cases of seventeen patients diagnosed with leukemia or non-Hodgkins lymphoma at the Giheung plant between 2007 and 2011, they stated that official, independent research would be necessary to establish a causal link between the diseases and exposure to hazardous materials at the workplace. The physicians agreed that it was unusual to find so many women contracting leukemia at a young age – an average of 28.5 years – after working in a particular location, but said they were unable to determine any correlation because the company had not provided adequate information on the hazardous chemicals the workers used or the workplace conditions.
This major coverage of the Samsung leukemia cases in a prominent international journal is evidence of the attention they are getting from researchers. And with good reason: despite no fewer than fifty-six people dying of leukemia, breast cancer, malignant brain tumors, or aplastic anemia after working at one of the world‘s biggest businesses, the debate over whether or not these are industrial accidents has been going on for several years now. It is embarrassing to see this happening while Samsung goes on a “global standard,” and the government about “national prestige in the new century.” The leukemia issue is widely understood to be one of the big reasons Samsung Electronics placed third in a January online poll by Greenpeace and others to select the “world’s worst company.”
The rash of illnesses is rapidly turning into an international issue, yet little has been done back home in terms of a response. A few days ago, objections by New Frontier Party lawmakers prevented the National Assembly’s Environment and Labor Committee from forming a subcommittee on the Samsung leukemia issue. The ruling party needs to stop pandering to the business community and investigate these illnesses at the parliamentary level. Samsung, for its part, should disclose information on its semiconductor plants and conduct an objective study of workplace conditions.
Samsung Electronics has had a banner year so far in 2012, earning operating profits of 12.55 trillion won (US$10.9 billion) on sales of 92.27 trillion won (US$80.2 billion) in the first half alone. Much of this may be the result of its managers’ prowess, but there is no question that its foundation has been the sweat and striving of its workers. As important as performance is, more respect should be given to people.
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