The former Samsung semiconductor and LCD workers who became unwell were mostly in their 20s and 30s.
Advertisement
In this October 23, 2015 photo, Hwang Sang-gi, a founding member of advocacy group Banolim, holds a picture of his daughter Yu-mi during an interview denouncing Samsung’s response in its latest negotiations with sick workers outside Samsung buildings in Seoul, South Korea. Four years later, she died of leukemia.
A group of workers’ families has said 76 people have died due to contact with the chemicals.
Compensation for industrial injury, including cancer, has been awarded in some cases, but the group of families say that other claims are being hampered because the South Korean authorities demand the details of which chemicals had caused the illnesses and deaths. However he struggled to get details about the factory environment.
Since 2008, 56 workers have sought occupational safety compensation from the government.
Hwang also told AP that Samsung had offered him 1 billion won ($A1.18 million) to remain silent on the matter.
Instead, he did the opposite.
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 at least six cases involving 10 workers, the justification for withholding the information was trade secrets.
“Our fight is often against trade secrets. Any contents that may not work in Samsung’s favour were deleted as trade secrets”, Lim Ja-woon, a lawyer who has represented 15 sick Samsung workers, told AP.
It also does not hurt that the South Korean government does not penalize companies for withholding information needed “to protect the lives, physical safety, and health” of people on the basis of holding on to their trade secrets, even though the firms are technically prohibited from doing so.
Government officials openly say corporate interests take priority, that evaluating trade-secrets claims is hard, and that they fear being sued for sharing data against a company’s will.
Yang Won-baek, a staff from the Korea Work-related Safe practices Agency (KOSHA) stated “We must keep secrets owed to the clients”. “It’s about trust”, he added. I asked my sisters and they don’t have money.
When asked for comment, Samsung issued a statement to the AP saying it never “intentionally” blocked workers from accessing information and that it is transparent about all chemicals it is required to disclose.
Workers who have become ill are legally supposed to have access to a list of chemicals that they are exposed to so that they can apply for workers’ compensation from the government. That reluctance turns into a near impossibility if the South Korean government does not receive any information regarding employees’ exposure to toxins, which is where the accusation that Samsung withholds such information comes in. “Up to 10 years, you get compensated, a little after 10 years, you don’t”.
More than 100 families left with few other options accepted a compensation plan Samsung proposed a year ago, which covered some medical fees and some income for workers with any of 26 diseases. Some families rejected the deal.
Samsung stated on its site that their chemical administration system is rigorous and state-of-the-art work. It has had “real-time 24/7 chemical monitoring” in all facilities since 2007, the year the government began inquiries into Yu-mi’s death.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon embraced the 99-year-old woman he calls his “American Mom” on a nostalgic visit to her home where as a high school student from war-ravaged South Korea he spent his first days in the. Hwang Sang-gi received almost $175,000 from the government.
South Korea’s tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. on Thursday said it has signed a contract to acquire a USA premium kitchen appliance maker, Dacor, in a move to bolster Samsung’s presence in the American luxury home-appliance market.
Recently, there has been some movement toward greater transparency.
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. Lim said the law on occupational disease compensation also obligates Samsung to give workers the data they need to make claims.
Advertisement
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”.
