SOUTH KOREA: Condemn Samsung for Killing Workers

Human Rights Ambassador William Nicholas Gomes contacts Korean and Samsung officials after 55th worker dies from brain cancer.

Lee Yunjeong

(HONG KONG) - Most would agree that it is awfully hard to put a price on a human life. One thing you can bet on if you are a Korean working for Samsung, sadly, is that the price is not high enough.

Korean officials and the Samsung company are acting in complicity, coordinating their efforts to silence and ignore the growing evidence of a cancer cluster among electronics manufacturing workers at Samsung. These are employees with no previous exposure to toxic chemicals.

55 human lives, that is the number that advocates for these employees, use in relation to the Samsung brain cancer deaths. The tragic death of a young woman named Lee Yunjeong, likely could have been avoided under proper working conditions. She died due to malignant brain cancer, marking the 55th brain cancer death at this Samsung facility, that is no coincidence.

Lee worked in the Samsung semiconductor Assembly & Test factory in Onyang, where she and other workers are consistently exposed to toxic chemicals. Her span of employment lasted six years, ending in 2003. She was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2010. The Korean Government and Samsung should apologize for the death of Lee, and they should stop undermining the just right of workers to be compensated, and respect labor rights.

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To Korean Government and Samsung, Dear Sir, I am William Nicholas Gomes, Human Rights Ambassador for Salem News.com. I am writing to express my grave concern and grief over the death of Lee Yunjeong, a young Samsung worker who lost her life on 7th May due to malignant brain cancer. To our great anguish, this is already the 55th death of Samsung workers. Ms. Lee Yunjeong worked in Samsung semiconductor Assembly & Test factory in Onyang, consistently exposed to toxic chemicals for six years during her employment from 1997 to 2003. In 2010, she was diagnosed of brain cancer. I severely condemn Samsung for causing death to dozens of workers. Until now, Samsung remains adamant in denying its full responsibility and unwilling to pay due compensation to all the deceased workers. To our outrage, we strongly demand Samsung and the Korean government to be accountable for the death of the workers. Lee Yunjeong had applied for the Workers’ Compensation to the Government, which is one of the social insurance benefits of Korea. However, the Korean Government refused to compensate her based on grounds that she could not prove which toxic chemicals she had been exposed to. Lee raised lawsuit against the Government’s decision in 2011, but could not survive long enough to see the result of the lawsuit. To our utmost anger, Samsung persistently refused its responsibility for paying full compensation to the former employees plagued by occupational diseases. What’s worse, the Korean government acted in complicity with Samsung and joined its efforts to silence the growing evidence of a cancer cluster among electronics manufacturing workers at Samsung who have been exposed to toxic chemicals. On 2nd April, there was a funeral ceremony for Park Ji-yeon, followed by a press conference at Samsung headquarters in Seoul to demand accountability from the company. The press conference was unfortunately cracked down by the police who then arrested seven of the activists shouting aloud of “Samsung, You are responsible for the death of Ji-Yeon Park!” They were detailed for two days before release. The problem of occupational disease is not confined to Samsung or Korea. This is an industry-wide issue because many electronics companies create unsafe or even hazardous workplaces in the countries they operate. A series of recent investigations in the US, UK, Taiwan and elsewhere have highlighted an elevated cancer risk in workers in the semiconductor industry. For far too long, electronics industry executives have continued to deny responsibility and have treated chemical exposure and the resulting cancer deaths as simply the cost of doing business. I, firmly demand that: The Korean Government and Samsung should apologize for the death of Lee; Samsung should stop undermining the just right of workers to be compensated, and respect the labor rights. Korean Government should provide safety net and warranty that all companies are obliged to compensate to all the occupational victims, including Samsung. I urge the Korean government and Samsung to fulfill its responsibility for compensating occupational disease victims and respect the dignity and the solemn rights of all workers and their families. The international communities, trade unions and all civil societies concerned will continue to monitor the practices of Samsung and the Korean government on this issue until justice is completely brought to the victims. Yours sincerely, William Nicholas Gomes Human Rights Ambassador for Salem News.com www.williamgomes.org

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He is also active in advocating for free and independent media and journalists’ rights, and is part of the free media movement, Global Independent Media Center – an activist media network for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate telling of the truth. He worked for Italian news agency Asianews.it from year 2009 to 2011, on that time he was accredited as a free lance journalist by the press information department of Bangladesh. During this time he has reported a notable numbers of reports for the news agency which were translated into Chinese and Italian and quoted by notable number of new outlets all over the world.He, ideologically, identifies himself deeply attached with anarchism. His political views are often characterized as “leftist” or “left-wing,” and he has described himself as an individualist anarchist.