Kang Byungwon of the main opposition Minjoo Party said that when the labor ministry investigated workplace safety at a Samsung chip factory after a deadly accident in 2013, numerous findings were not disclosed to lawmakers, on grounds of protecting trade secrets.
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An Associated Press investigation has found South Korean authorities have repeatedly withheld from workers and their bereaved families crucial information about chemicals they were exposed to at Samsung’s computer chip and liquid crystal display factories. However, companies that claim the information is part of its trade secrets do not have to disclose it. Applications for government compensation that lack information about which chemicals are used are typically denied. “Any contents that may not work in Samsung’s favor were deleted as trade secrets”, said Lim Ja-woon, a lawyer who has represented 15 sick Samsung workers.
A group of workers’ families has said 76 people have died due to contact with the chemicals.
The victims need the information about the chemicals to qualify for compensation from the government. While in some cases employees have received compensation, there are many that have not as authorities have demanded more details about the chemicals that caused the illnesses and deaths of the workers.
Trade secrets were cited as the justification for withholding the information in at least six cases involving 10 workers. However he struggled to get details about the factory environment.
Under South Korean law, companies are not required to reveal information deemed a trade secret. In another case, a former Samsung chip worker is unable to hold a regular job because she was diagnosed with lupus. Sick workers need access to such data through the government or the courts to apply for workers’ compensation from the state.
In this April 22, 2016 photo, portraits of former Samsung semiconductor factory worker Hwang Yu-mi who died from leukemia in 2007, are displayed outside Samsung buildings in Seoul, South Korea.
In this January 27, 2016 photo, Kim Mi-seon, 36, former Samsung display factory worker who lost sight in 2014 since diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, sits on a hospital bed while speaking during an interview in Seoul, South Korea.
“The theory was once to disclaim her illness was an occupational disease and to go away me without any energy to combat back”, said Hwang, who created a movement seeking strict inspections of Samsung industrial factories. My daughter was diagnosed a little over 10 years (after she left Samsung).
Samsung states on its website that its chemical management system is “rigorous” and “state-of-the-art”.
In 2014, seven years after Yu-mi’s death, an appeals court affirmed a lower court’s finding of “a significant causal relationship” between Yu-mi’s leukemia and her likely exposure to benzene, other chemicals and ionized radiation at work. She died of leukemia four years later.
In June, for the first time, the government’s worker safety agency formally designated a case of malignant lymphoma as an occupational disease at a Samsung semiconductor factory, despite Samsung’s refusal to hand over exposure data and other information.
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In recent years, Samsung has accelerated the pace of its acquisitions as competitive challenges loom for all three of its business units-mobile, consumer appliances and semiconductors and display components. “It took too long”.
