UN inspector praises Samsung in dealing with alleged victims

By Kim Tae-gyu

A U.N. inspector on risky substances praised Samsung Electronics in dealing with the alleged victims of the tech giant’s harmful use of chemicals in a recent report for the Human Rights Council slated for Sept. 13 in Geneva.

Baskut Tuncak, a special rapporteur at the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has worked on the report almost a year with the aim of checking the effects of detrimental chemicals in Korea.

“The special rapporteur sincerely commends Samsung Electronics for its spirit of cooperation, openness and continuing dialogue with him,” Tuncak said. “He acknowledges internal changes by Samsung Electronics and steps taken to realize the right of former workers to an effective remedy.”

The claims started in the mid 2000s that Samsung is responsible for poisoning its workers by not properly protecting them from toxic working environments in its semiconductor factories.

After years of contentions, the world’s largest chipmaker made an apology in 2014 and promised to compensate victims or their families.

Toward that end, it set up principles after long consultation with the committee representing affected employees and their families. There remain disputes with another group for the alleged Samsung victims, though.

Those who are eligible for compensation are former Samsung employees who worked at the firm longer than a year and retired later than 1996. Their treatment costs will be fully covered by Samsung and one-off compensation will also be paid.

Thus far, almost 179 applications have been made to Samsung and around two thirds of them received compensation with a letter of apology from the Samsung CEO.

Plus, Samsung founded a 100 billion won ($85 million) fund to help those affected and created an Ombudsman Committee which is set to monitor the firm’s semiconductor operations to ensure worker safety.

“It agreed with other parties to establish a three-member Ombudsman Committee to conduct an audit of the efforts of Samsung Electronics relating to prevention and to propose recommendations for improvement,” he said.

“The special rapporteur welcomes the establishment of the Ombudsman Committee, and looks forward to its implementation with both transparency and meaningful public participation by all stakeholders.”

Tunsak came up with three recommendations for Samsung. The first is to ensure that all affected workers and contractors are indeed compensated and the second is to prevent victims via proactive activities of the Ombudsman Committee. The final is to continue collaboration with human rights agencies.

This marks a stark contrast to his remarks last October when he visited Korea to look into the country’s human rights and hazardous substances and wastes.

“I am afraid that many workers at Samsung Electronics have fallen victim to priorities that place profits before human rights,” he said in a statement after finishing the two week-long fact-finding mission.

The latest and final report also included the two facts that in 2007, the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute conducted epidemiological investigation at the Samsung plant but didn’t find any carcinogen that might have caused leukemia and the next year the institute staged a health study on 200,000 workers to get a result that showed no statistical significance for leukemia.

However, Tunsak criticized Samsung’s failure to disclose all substances used for semiconductor production ― Samsung refused the request citing that it is confidential business information.