hankyoreh

wife of Hwang Min-woong

In November 2011, Na Yu-byeong (51, not his real name) started working on lines no. 15 and 16 at a Samsung Electronics semiconductor plant in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province. He was assigned to the central chemical supply system (CCSS), which supplies the various chemicals needed in each phase of manufacturing semiconductors.

Na’s main job was to bring drums full of solvents and other chemicals from the warehouse and hook them up to the equipment. When he attached the drum to the pipe, the system would automatically dispense as much chemicals as were needed for the process.

A sign posted at the CCSS where Na was working said “Danger, carcinogens.”

In December of the following year - barely a year after he started working - Na started getting headaches, and his back started itching. When he visited the doctor, he was diagnosed with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, a kind of skin cancer.

Na believes that his disease is closely related to his work at the factory. Every day when he hooked the drums of chemicals up to the CCSS, he got a strong whiff of chemicals. When the chemicals spilled, he would sometimes wipe them off with his hand as well.

Na quit his job at the factory in January 2013 and filed the incident with the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service (COMWEL) in October 2014. Na was employed by an in-house subcontractor for Samsung Electronics.

Since the end of last year, interested parties have been discussing the question of how to compensate Samsung Electronics factory workers who have contracted leukemia and other serious diseases.

The negotiations are being mediated by an arbitration committee that includes representatives from Samsung, a committee of families affected by the illnesses, and Banollim, a watchdog that defends the health and human rights of workers in the semiconductor industry.

For now, the chances that Na will receive compensation for his illness are negligible. Samsung said that it does not regard employees at its subcontractors as being eligible for compensation.

“In regard to the question of our subcontractors, the primary ethical and legal responsibility lies with the companies that hired the workers. Moving forward, we think the right approach would be to strengthen the standards for industrial accident prevention and health and safety management at our subcontractors,” Samsung said during the second meeting of the arbitration committee on Jan. 16.

“It’s hard to understand how I could be ineligible for compensation when I worked at a Samsung Electronics factory every day for a year and two months just like a regular employee,” Na said in a phone interview with the Hankyoreh on Jan. 26.

The position of Banollim and the family committee is that Samsung must also compensate the employees at its subcontractors.

By Jeon Jong-hwi, staff reporter

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