DEATH TWEET After the leukaemia death of 23-year-old Samsung worker Park Ji-yeon on 31 March 2010, the company went on Twitter to offer an expression of mourning. But the company’s management is insisting Samsung’s problem is not one of chemicals and cancer, but of communication.
On 31 March 2010, 23-year-old Park Ji-yeon died of leukaemia. She contracted the blood cancer at the age of 20 after working at the Samsung semiconductor factory in Onyang, South Korea. Her case is part of a cancer cluster affecting workers at the microelectronics giant.
Samsung’s response to a high profile campaign for justice for the cancer victims – a flat denial – sits uneasily alongside the company’s claims to sustainability and all round inclusiveness. Samsung’s website, on pages that describe the firm’s “main approaches to sustainability” and which highlight its desire to “build positive relationships” with everyone from NGOs, to employees, to “Global Society”, notes: “In every area of Samsung’s business, we work to improve our global society.” It adds: “We have designated economic, environmental and social responsibilities as the key elements of our sustainable management.”
But can a company stand accused of exposing workers to substances that are known to cause cancers and make any claim to sustainability? And can it maintain a credible claim to “sustainable management” if it dismisses the concerns of cancer victims out of hand?
Greenpeace for one is not convinced. On 3 March 2010, Greenpeace climbers scaled the Benelux headquarters of the Korean electronics giant, displaying the message ‘Samsung = Broken Promises’ in giant letters on the front of the building. The peaceful protest targeted the company for breaking its promises to eliminate key toxic substances from its products – including known human carcinogens.
Campaigners in Korea have so far collated evidence suggesting 23 Samsung workers employed at plants in the country have suffered from haematopoietic cancers like leukaemia or lymphoma, and at least nine workers have died. Samsung workers are also known to suffer from skin disorders, neuropathy, fertility problems including miscarriages, and chronic nosebleeds.
On 2 April 2010, following a funeral ceremony for Park Ji-yeon, Supporters for the Health and Rights of People in the Semiconductor industry (SHARPS), a coalition of trade unions and campaign groups, organised a press conference at Samsung headquarters in Seoul, calling the company to account for the cancer deaths. The police broke up the event and detained seven activists. They were held until 5 April, when they were released without charge.
SHARPS says the pattern of cancer deaths at Samsung’s Korean factories “bears a striking resemblance to the pattern of cancer deaths among IBM ‘chip’ workers in the US and to other electronics cancer clusters around the world.”
Together with Asia Monitor Resource Centre (AMRC), Asian Network for the Rights of Occupational Accident Victims (ANROAV) and the International Campaign for Responsible Technology (ICRT) it is seeking support for a petition to the president of the Korean government Gee-sung Choi, the CEO of Samsung Electronics, the Korean minister of labour, the president of the Korea Workers’ Compensation & Welfare Service and the head of the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency.
This demands justice for cancer victims and improvements in safety standards, and adds Samsung “must disclose to the workers and the public the truth about the hazards of working in the semiconductor industry” and “must stop suppressing workers in their struggles for a safe and fair workplace.”
The response from the electronics giant has been to launch a major public relations charm offensive. On 15 April 2010, Samsung invited reporters to a microchip plant south of Seoul to demonstrate its manufacturing process and to provide assurances about its commitment to safety. “There is no risk,” said Cho Soo-in, president of the company’s memory division, adding: “From now on, we will openly conduct management that has its basis in communication.”
Injury lawyer Mandy Hawes, who has won landmark legal cases for US workers suffering devastating health problems including cancers as a result of working in the electronic industry and who is supporting the Korean campaigners, posed this question in response: “How many more electronics workers would be alive and well if over the past 30 years Samsung and its semiconductor industry brethren had made hazard communication as much as a priority as ‘branding’ or other market-based ‘communication’, strategies?”
The campaign launched a new ‘Stop Samsung’ website on 23 April 2010. SHARPS says it “presents a compelling case for why those of us who depend on our cell phones, our TVs, our computers, and other high-tech things that now dominate our lives should care about the people – mostly young women – who make them.”
10 Comments
i give my approuval to campainers against Samsung’s broken promises further more i agree with their option (peaceful manifestation)Samsung should take care of his female workers ‘s health
Has there been any mention of particular chemicals used at Samsung that are being implicated?
Hello there…. press reports this week in Korea indicate a new report will do precisely that – watch this space of have a look at the Stop Samsung blog. Yours, Rory
I hope Samsung would take full responsibility of the issue. I agree to SHARP on calling their petition to Samsung to accept responsibility for occupational deaths and to provide safe and decent working conditions.
The deaths at Samsung have raised the issue of cancers and other illnesses among electronics workers throughout the global supply chain among workers for all international brands and their contract factory operators.
Hey great article. One question though, what is really the reason behind of those deaths?. Thanks a lot.
I think one of the reason is the radiation from the mobile phone. Mobile phones use electromagnetic radiation in the microwave range, which some believe may be harmful to human health.
I just learned that those workers who had just develop leukemia and lymphoma was caused by exposure to radiation and benzene, a carcinogen, in Samsung chip factories.
I feel bad that South Korean companies are focusing more on productivity and profitability than the health of their employees. One bad thing for a company.
It’s a serious problem when a company gets called “green” for having a decent energy policy and good PR without even examining their chemical policies and occupational health issues.
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