Infirm former Samsung workers slam company response

SEOUL, South Korea — When she began working at a Samsung Electronics factory as a semiconductor assembly line worker at the age of 18, Kim Mi-seon says she was given a clean bill of health by company doctors. By the time Kim left three years later, she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which scientists believe is triggered by environmental factors. Now, the nervous system disease has left Kim nearly blind.

Even over a decade after being diagnosed with MS, 35-year-old Kim can only shake her head and say, “I didn’t think I would one day be unable to recognize my own mother.”

Kim suspects that her illness — which occurs at a rate of about four in 100,000 in South Korea — was caused by the toxic substances she was exposed to on the job. She is joined by over 200 other former Samsung Electronics workers who have reported that they suffer from illnesses they believe were caused by their workplace.

On Sept. 19, Samsung announced that it would begin accepting applications for compensation for the first time since the issue came to light in 2007, when 22-year-old Samsung Electronics factory worker Hwang Yu-mi died from acute myeloid leukemia. But for many victims, the move is not a victory. “I don't agree with it at all,” said Kim, who is boycotting Samsung's plan. “They're just plowing through with no regard for the arbitration process that they themselves agreed to.”

Though victims and their families have been fighting for reparations for Samsung for nearly 10 years, the company has denied any formal responsibility. Since 2007, 71 Samsung factory employees have died, according to South Korean advocacy group SHARPS (Supporters of the Health And Rights of People in the Semiconductor industry), and some, like Kim, are seriously disabled.

In 2013, Lim Ja-woon requested a copy of an occupational health and safety assessment report on one of Samsung’s factories from the Ministry of Labor and Employment — the evaluating body — but found that several important passages had been redacted before delivery.

“Even in sections like 'accidents from the last three years' or 'supply of protective gear to workers' there was only the phrase, 'trade secret’,” said Lim. In 2014, Lim subpoenaed Samsung for documents on lead use, suspecting that lead fumes might have contributed to Kim’s multiple sclerosis. Samsung said they no longer had the records.

The company’s reluctance to disclose information has also hampered victims’ efforts to win compensation through the government-run worker’s compensation program. In South Korea, victims of workplace injury or illness typically file claims with the Korean Worker’s Compensation and Welfare Service (KCOMWEL), which compensates victims from a fund paid into by employers.

Repeated instances of Samsung barring victims and their attorneys from being present during routine field studies conducted to investigate compensation claims have caused many to distrust KCOMWEL’s rulings. “No other company has ever refused entry to me or my clients, but I have yet to step foot in one of Samsung’s factories,” said Kim Min-ho, a labor attorney who has been representing Samsung victims since 2008. “How can anyone trust a decision based on an investigation that relies solely on what Samsung revealed to investigators, but with no input whatsoever from the victim?” Currently, KCOMWEL has approved only three out of 56 claims. Twenty-four have been rejected on grounds of insufficient causal evidence, and the remaining 28 are pending.

Following in the footsteps of Hwang Sang-ki, who successfully sued to have his daughter’s claim approved in court, 11 others have currently filed lawsuits against KCOMWEL. In Hwang’s case, the court ruled that despite a lack of conclusive evidence, there is enough to believe that Hwang Yu-mi’s illness may have well been workplace related.

Although Samsung Electronics states that “The processes and controls at Samsung continue to meet or exceed semiconductor industry safety standards,” their track record has been troubling.

Multiple fatal gas and acid leak accidents at its Hwaseong plant in 2013 prompted a government investigation, which found 1,934 Occupational Safety and Health Act violations and severe problems with Samsung’s handling of dangerous substances and worker protection. A Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA) review of Samsung’s Giheung plant from the same year highlighted a lack of proper chemical disposal and leak detection systems, observing a widespread ignorance of safety and health issues.

“A lot of these workers — many of them only 17 or 18-years-old — don't know about the substances they're using,” said Dr. Kong Jeong-ok, an occupational health physician who works with SHARPS. “Some of them have told me that they just referred to these various agents as ‘chemicals’ because they didn’t know the actual names.”