hankyoreh

During a light rainy morning on March 31, another female worker of a Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor factory who fell ill with acute leukemia passed away. As far as related groups have determined, she is the eighth victim.

The group “Banollim,” which concerns itself with the health and human rights of people in the semiconductor industry, announced that at 11 a.m. that morning, Park Ji-yeon, 23, who had been suffering from acute leukemia she contracted while working at the Onyang factory of Samsung Electronics, passed away. Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital’s Professor Min Woo-sung, Park’s chief physician, told the Hankyoreh during a telephone interview that she died of an infection brought on by pneumorrhagia, a hemorrhage of the lungs.

Park joined Samsung Electronics in December 2004, during her third year in high school. Because of her family’s financial situation, she had to find work early, and was tasked with inspecting semiconductors. She would use tweezers to place the semiconductors in a hot lead solution and other chemicals, remove them and use an x-ray machine to inspect them. In July 2007, she began to feel unwell. She began to throb inside, and was diagnosed at a hospital with acute leukemia.

In September of the same year, she fortunately received a bone marrow transplant and briefly recovered, but last year the disease returned. She traveled to Seoul from her home in Buyeo, Chungcheongnam Province, on March 26, and began vomiting blood and her face grew highly swollen. She was admitted to Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital, but died six days later.

Banollim has determined that the number of workers at the Giheung and Onyang plants of Samsung Electronics who have come down with acute leukemia, lymphoma and other blood-related cancers alone total 20. Lee Jong-lan, an official with the group, said of eight of the 20 including Park, Hwang Yu-mi and Hwang Min-ung have died, while the others are still combating their illnesses.

Civic and social groups have claimed that the continued occurrence of leukemia patients at Samsung Electronics factories is due to the factory’s occupational environment, but Samsung has continued to deny this. Early last year, the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency conducted an epidemiological investigation, but judged the causal relationship between the work environment and disease occurrence to be low.

In October of last year, the Seoul National University R&DB Foundation detected the carcinogen benzine during an epidemiological investigation conducted of South Korea‘s three semiconductor factories, which include Samsung Electronics, Hynix and Amkor Technology, but the companies do not recognize the credibility of the investigation.

Based on this, Banollim filed a suit on Jan. 11 with three of the sick workers, including Park, and the families of three who had already succumbed to the illnesses against the Korea Workers’ Compensation & Welfare Service demanding recognition of an industrial disaster and the payment of medical subsidies.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]