Following worker suicide, Samsung reluctantly pledges change (Hangyoreh)

The company initially ignored four suicide attempts by the same worker without taking action

By Jeon Jin-sik

Ninety-seven days. The chrysanthemums were a faint yellow with their heads dropped limply. The season changed from bitter cold to spring landscapes. At the viewing room for a young man who wilted away like the flowers, there was merely candlelight.

At the viewing room in Soonchunhyang University Cheonan Hospital in South Chungcheong Province early Sunday morning, family members of the late Kim Ju-hyeon were just packing up their things. Kim, an employee at the Tangjeong factory of Samsung Electronics in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, took his own life on Jan. 11 by jumping from the thirteenth floor of his dormitory. His suicide came 373 days after he joined the company with the congratulations of his family.

Contending that Kim took his own life due to depression from excessive working hours and stress, the family members demanded an apology from the company and measures to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future. They also claim that the company ignored no fewer than four previous suicide attempts by Kim without taking any appropriate measures on the morning of the incident.

“Being a worker for Samsung is not only a good thing,” said father Kim Myeong-bok 56, wiping away tears. “It was the first time I understood there was a world like this.”

A notebook confirmed to be Kim’s after the incident includes sentences such as “twelve hours of work = standard” and “one year and I’m dead.”

The record of the emergency care center at Soonchunhyung University Cheonan Hospital, which examined Kim’s body on the day of his death, includes phrases about “depression” and “references to suicide.” Samsung has refused to acknowledge this evidence that it knew about Kim’s suicide attempts.
Kim Myeong-bok and Samsung Electronics representatives signed an agreement on Apr. 15 that included a company apology and pledge to prevent similar incidents from occurring.

“I had no idea it would be so hard getting this single sheet of paper,” Kim said.

On the same day, the bereaved family members withdrew a January petition to the Cheonan branch of the Ministry of Employment of Labor asking for special labor oversight at Samsung Electronics, which the company demanded as part of its terms for signing the agreement.

Kim’s family members paid a visit Sunday to the dormitory where he had lived, but were unable to stay for even ten minutes due to control measures from the company. Following Kim’s cremation at Cheonan Memorial Park, the family plans to keep the container with his ashes at their home in Incheon for the time being.

“We will monitor to see whether the measures to prevent reoccurrence are properly implemented,” said Lee Jong-ran, a labor attorney with Banollim, a human rights and health watchdog for semiconductor workers.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]

Original source article at: http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/473516.html

Read Full Post »

73 days since the death of Kim Joo-hyun; 1 year since the restoration of Lee Gun-hee (Samsung CEO) to his head business position

Lee Gun-hee, Lee Jae-yong, and Choi, Gee-sung (heads of Samsung conglomerate and Samsung Electronics), do you know that two workers committed suicide from their dormitory in January this year??

In the chill weather in the flowering season the bereaved family of Kim Joo-hyun are keeping up their protest in front of the headquarters of the company and condemning the inhumanities of the Samsung corporate dynasty.

March 24 was the day come again to place where this chairman was restored to his position by the Lee Myungbak President, after his conviction. We had remembered this day and some guests join the protest.

Mr Lee Kiho who had been imprisoned for one and a half years because of the Ssangyong Motors strike and ‘Orange’ who works as an activist at Dasan Human Rights Center, came to express solidarity. Also there was Kim Jong-tae, who was fired from Suwon Samsung Electronics because he posted on the electronic bulletin board that Samsung worker should set up a union; and the victims of the Guacheon eviction.

The mother of Kim Joo-hyun said “My son had lived only 25 years. He is more precious than your whole company. It has been 73 days after he died, we want to have his funeral! ceremony. Somebody has to show the responsibility and apologize to the family!” There are many unjust deaths in Korea in this final stage of capitalism. But if the only bereaved families protest about this issue and if we do not try to make a union because we are afraid of the power of the company, there is no bright future for the democracy for all.

Summarized from March 24, KCTU website (in Korean)- http://nodong.org/592486

Read Full Post »

Samsung blocks investigation on an LCD engineer’s suicide (Hangyoreh)

As workers streamed out of the building for lunch at noon on Thursday, three women stood in front of the head office of Samsung Electronics in Seoul’s Seocho neighborhood holding a funeral portrait and wailing. The women are the mother, older sister, and aunt of Kim Ju-hyeon, a worker at the company’s Tangjeong LCD complex who committed suicide in his dormitory on Jan. 11. Kim was 25.

Kim Jeong, the elder sister of Kim Ju-hyeon, holds brother’s portrait in a request to speak with a representative in front of the Samsung Electronics headquarters in Seoul. (Photo: Lim Ji-sun)

Thursday marked one week since the bereaved family members, who had previously issued their calls for an investigation in front of the Tangjeong complex in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, assumed their positions in front of the head office in Seoul. Kim’s older sister Jeong, 28, said, “We came to Seoul after the people at the Tangjeong complex told us, ‘It is out of our hands now, go tell the head office,’ but nobody will meet with us.”

Samsung positioned employees to physically prevent Kim’s family members from entering the building. The same scene has been repeated for a full week, with dozens of men positioned at the entrance to the main building to block the bereaved family members.

Shockingly, the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) has also been silent to their demands for an investigation. On Feb. 28, the 49th day since Kim’s death, the ministry notified them of a decision not to disclose Samsung Electronics’ employment regulations, explaining that they were Samsung’s “trade secrets.”

This decision has been called unprecedented even by those within MOEL.

“The employment regulations are a document that is made well-known to all workers, clearly specifying their working conditions and so forth,” said a MOEL official. “I cannot fathom how this could be a trade secret.”

“In my eight years as a labor attorney, I have never seen the Ministry of Employment and Labor refuse to disclose a company’s employment regulations,” said Lee Jeong-ran, a labor attorney with the group Banollim, a civic organization that advocates for the health and human rights of workers in the semiconductor industry. “The decision not to disclose the regulations is evidence that the Ministry of Employment and Labor is assigning itself the role of Samsung’s puppet,” Lee added.

Samsung Electronics stated, “[The employment regulations] are designated internally as something to be kept confidential from the outside.”

MOEL also said that no data exists on suicides and declined to disclose the findings of Kim Ju-hyeon’s special health evaluation, on the grounds that it was “under investigation.”

Kim, who began work as an equipment engineer on Samsung Electronics’ LCD color filter production line in January 2010, jumped to his death from the 13th floor of his dormitory. He had been suffering from stress due to workdays lasting over 12 hours, as well as a skin disease of unknown cause. Fifty days after his death, no funeral has yet been held.

Banollim and other groups that have battled Samsung Electronics over occupational leukemia cases designated the third week of March as “memorial week for workers who have died from semiconductor and electronics industry accidents.” They plan to hold rallies during the week at sites such as Seoul Station and the area near the main offices of Samsung.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]

Original article at: http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/466463.html

Read Full Post »