Hankook Tire Cleared of Charges on Disease Outbreaks
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
The Ministry of Labor concluded Tuesday that no connection existed between multiple occurrences of heart disease and the working environment at a Hankook Tire plant in Daejeon.
The ministry told the presidential transition team in a briefing that though the workers at the plant seem to have more heart disease than others, the relation between the alleged ``deadly working environment'' and the occurrence could not be confirmed.
The ministry also held a press conference in the afternoon repeating its findings and refuting allegations made by families of the deceased.
It said the workers at Hankook Tire had a relative 5.5 times and 2.6 times greater chance of dying from heart disease and suffering heart attacks than others in the same age group. However, there was no evidence that the working environment contributed to these, it added.
The ministry said it will conduct other research to study the relationship between workloads and health risks by end of the month.
A special investigation into the tire maker's plant in Daejeon was made after 15 workers were reported to have died over a short period of time through possible work-related deaths. Seven among them died of heart-related disease in less than two years.
Survivors of the deceased claimed that solvents used during the manufacturing process had played a role in their deaths. During the investigation, the labor ministry found the company had violated the Industrial Safety and Health Law 1,394 times and tried to cover up 183 industrial accident reports. Also, the team announced that the deceased workers suffered from a ``collective outbreak.''
Tuesday's report brought strong criticism from the people. They said the government may have given in to the incoming government, as President-to-be Lee Myung-bak is the father-in-law of the vice president of the tire company.
The bereaved families yelled at the conference saying, ``the conclusion was made in advance and the evidence was manipulated to fit it.'' They urged the company to apologize for the hypocrisy.
``It is quite hard for me to believe that there is no relationship when there are such high incidents of people getting sick,'' Lee Sang-yoon, a spokesman for the Association of Physicians for Humanism, said.
However, he admitted that there were risks of heavy workloads causing stress to the body, and that more study was necessary to clarify the exact reason for the occurrence.
``We will do our best to improve the working environment no matter what the final report says,'' Hankook Tire spokesman Calvin Park said, welcoming the government announcement.
``Workers will be provided with more specified and thorough health checks to prevent such mishaps in the future,'' he added.
Hankook Tire made other headlines when it was revealed to have allegedly suppressed a labor union, too. In December, workers of ASA, an affiliate company of the tire maker held a protest against the company alleging suppression of the union.
Also in November, it was reported on Hungarian medias that the local government cancelled its subsidy payment due to the company's illegalities in the country. Union members of the local plant alleged that the tire maker was preventing union activity.