In South Korea, most people lives with the acceptance that chaebols (members of huge family-owned enterprise conglomerates) can get away with something utilizing cash and affect. However in 2018, one thing occurred that modified this notion. Samsung, the largest conglomerate in South Korea, needed to pay out round ₩15.3 billion KRW (about $11.6 million USD) to compensate the households of its deceased employees after an 11-year-long battle that was began by Hwang Sang Ki.
On March 6, 2007, Hwang Sang Ki witnessed his 23-year-old daughter Yumi die within the backseat of his taxi whereas driving her to the hospital for her most cancers therapy. Yumi had been working at Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. in Suwan for 5 years till she was recognized with acute myelogenous leukemia.
Upon receiving her analysis, Yumi’s father requested her what kind of labor she did at Samsung. Yumi replied that her job on the semiconductor manufacturing unit was to coat the wafers in a number of chemical substances. Hwang Sang Ki realized that her sickness may have been attributable to her work and tried to ask her firm for employee’s compensation. However he was repeatedly dismissed.
After Yumi’s dying, her father refused to signal a settlement, and the corporate allegedly solid paperwork to point out that Yumi was not working with chemical substances on the manufacturing unit in any respect. When he discovered that one other 30-year-old employee on the identical manufacturing line as his daughter had additionally died of leukemia, he determined to push the difficulty much more.
Being a person with restricted assets, Hwang Sang Ki didn’t have any concept the place to begin his combat. He had already filed a compensation declare with the Korean Employees Compensation and Welfare Service (KCOMWEL). Ultimately, he met labor activist and legal professional Lee Jong Ran, and the 2 began a corporation referred to as Banolim, translated as Supporters for Well being and Rights of Folks in Semiconductor Trade (SHARPS). With Banolim, the 2 activists began protests and petitions and gathered on severe diseases confronted by semiconductor employees.
Banolim noticed a heart-breaking defeat when KCOMWEL rejected their compensation declare. However Hwang Sang Ki and his individuals by no means stepped down. Lastly, in 2011 the South Korean courts dominated in favor of the group’s claims (although partially).
However as an alternative of paying out the compensation as per the court docket’s ruling, Samsung employed the consulting agency, Environ, to look at the circumstances of its semiconductor fabrication services. The audit concluded that there was no hyperlink between the manufacturing unit’s working circumstances and the employees’ diseases. Primarily based on this report, Samsung refused to pay something to the bereaved households.
Regardless of KCOMWEL’s attraction, the courts caught to their resolution to rule in favor of Banolim. Samsung finally determined to obey the ruling and arrange a fund of ₩100 billion KRW (about $76.3 million USD) for the aim. Nevertheless, the corporate nonetheless denied any connection between its supplies and the intense illnesses suffered by its employees.
In October 2015, protestors, led by Hwang Sang Ki, organized a peaceable sit-in beneath the Samsung headquarters in Seoul, demanding the corporate change its compensation plan, as Banolim noticed it as an unacceptable providing in comparison with what the households had suffered. The protest went on for 1,000 days.
Lastly, Samsung needed to give in. In 2018, a mediation befell between the corporate and Banolim the place each events agreed that Samsung would pay ₩150 million KRW (about $114,000 USD) to every of its present and former employees if they’re discovered to have diseases because of work-related publicity to harmful substances.
The President and CEO of Samsung System Options additionally issued a public apology stating that Samsung had not correctly protected its employees in opposition to well being dangers and that the corporate had not responded to the problems in a well timed sufficient method. In a press convention following the mediation, Hwang Sang Ki said that greater than getting financial compensation, his purpose was to make sure that these incidents had been prevented in any respect prices.
No apology can be sufficient when contemplating the deception and humiliation we skilled over the previous 11 years, the ache of affected by occupational illnesses, the ache of dropping family members
Hwang Sang Ki
Although Banolim succeeded in its authorized and ethical pursuit, Samsung received away just about scot-free. The compensation it paid to the households didn’t even make a dent in its funds for the reason that identical yr, the corporate posted a revenue of ₩59.3 trillion KRW (about $45.2 billion USD).
In South Korea, chaebols typically take pleasure in immunity from the legislation for the reason that nation is so closely depending on them to maintain its economic system rising. The story of a person like Hwang Sang Ki speaks of braveness as a lot because it does of horrors in such a social system. Up to now, Samsung has refused to disclose the precise chemical substances and the quantities utilized in its manufacturing, stating that it’s a commerce secret. However at the least now, South Korean employees have a hopeful instance that even a large like Samsung could be introduced down, albeit after years of back-breaking combat.
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