By Kim Yoo-chul
Samsung Electronics is facing a growing setback in its efforts for steady progress in compensation talks with former company workers who’ve contracted leukemia and other diseases after working at its display and semiconductor facilities.
In a statement, a family body representing the interests of victims of some workers asked the three-member mediation committee to stop their role in the dispute.
The committee was created separately from local civic group, Banolim, for a quick resolution to the issue.
“The mediation committee has so far failed to bring tangible results over the last year. This is the end of their role. The committee should immediately be dismantled,” said the family organization.
It said recent developments between affected workers and Samsung Electronics were deeply troubling as the mediation body took the side of the Banolim.
Banolim is still asking Samsung to widen the scope of compensation, though there is no clear causation in terms of legality for injuries suffered from hazardous working conditions and the health of factory workers on Samsung’s production lines.
Health experts say causation hasn’t been proven for health impacts and the local health ministry said there are a lot of issues that need to be reviewed to prove causation and how hazardous substances impacted on the health of company workers at manufacturing lines.
“The three-member committee failed to live up to expectation to resolve the issue. Therefore, we asks that the mediation talks,” the family organization said. “Victims need quick resolution and compensation. We will talk directly with Samsung.”
It also said that talks for early compensation with affected workers and Samsung Electronics were smoothly underway. “Banolim asks Samsung to stop paying money for those who’ve filed for early compensation. This doesn’t make any sense.”
After Samsung Electronics began receiving requests from the families of the victims who’ve suffered from various types of illnesses at the company’s facilities, more than 100 filed for quick compensation and 50 of them have received it.
Experts said the committee’s mediation proposal looks quite controversial as it includes greater access for Banolim to inspect Samsung’s key factories and the establishment of a public organization with an initial 100 billion won paid by Samsung.
“The committee is dealing with the issue as a social one, and failed to seek balance. A scientific approach is strongly needed to resolve the dispute,” said a health expert in Seoul.
He said Banolim may have been “too much” encouraged by a recent trip by a United Nations (UN) official to Korea who said: “The inability to prove causation between the health impacts that individuals are suffering from and the hazardous substances that they have been exposed to presented an insurmountable obstacle to the vast majority of victims.”
The mediation committee will hold a new round of talks with the three parties ― Samsung Electronics, Banolim and the family organization ― on Nov. 25 at a local law firm in downtown Seoul.