Samsung Seeks Apology to Its Workers Who Got Cancer While Working

Samsung Electronics has apologized to its workers who have developed cancer while working at its semiconductor factories. Now, with the apology and the compensation order, it also brought to an end to a decade-long dispute between the workers and the company. Samsung Electronics is the world’s biggest mobile phone manufacturer and chipmaker and the flagship subsidiary of the Samsung Group.

Samsung’s Co-President Kim Ki-nam, said, “We sincerely apologise to the workers who suffered from illness and their families. We have failed to properly manage health risks at our semiconductor and LCD factories”.

Samsung Group by far is the biggest of the family-controlled businesses that dominate South Korea’s economy. It has also played a key role in the rise of South Korea as the world's 11th-largest economy, but has time to time faced accusations of dicey political connections.

Samsung’s de facto leader Lee Jae-yong was found guilty of bribing former South Korean President, Park Geun-hye as part of the corruption scandal that brought her down and spent almost a year in prison.

Industrial hazard is a matter of grave concern and therefore several campaign groups have been fighting against Samsung. According to the campaigners and activists, around 240 people have suffered from work-related illnesses, while working at the Samsung semiconductor and display factories of which around 80 of them died.

According to a mutually agreed deal announced earlier this month, Samsung Electronics will pay the group’s employees compensation of up to $133,000 per case.

It will cover 16 types of cancer, some other rare illnesses, miscarriages and congenital diseases suffered by the workers’ children. Claimants must have worked at the Samsung plants since 1984.

The scandal first emerged in the year 2007 when former workers at its semiconductor and display factories in Suwon, south of Seoul found that they and their families had been diagnosed or died of various forms of cancer. 

A series of rulings and decisions by courts, Seoul’s state labour welfare agency and a mediation committee followed for over more than 10 years, which finally resulted in the recent announcement of apology and compensation.

Victims such as Hwang Sang-gi, whose 22-year-old daughter died of leukemia in 2007, has welcomed the decision but said, “The apology honestly is not enough for the families of the victims but we will accept it. No amount of apology will be enough to heal all the insults, the pain of industrial injuries and the suffering of losing one’s family. I cannot forget the pain she and our family went through. Too many people have suffered the same fate”.