Democratic Party Lawmaker Lee Mi-kyung, right, asks Labor Minister Bahk Jae-wan, left, about illnesses among Samsung Electronics semiconductor factory workers during an audit of the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) at Gwacheon Government Complex, Oct. 5. (Photo by Park Jong-shik)

During the audit, there were bipartisan calls for changing procedures for recognizing industrial accidents

During a parliamentary audit, Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Mi-kyung charged that the reason illnesses among Samsung Electronics factory workers have not been recognized as industrial accidents is because there has been no disclosure of detailed information about the chemicals used at the factories at risk. The National Assembly’s Environmental and Labor Committee held the audit for the Ministry of Employment and Labor on Tuesday at the Gwacheon Government Complex.

“Around 96 workers at the Samsung Electronics plants, including Hwang Yu-mi and Park Ji-yeon, have reportedly contracted leukemia, and 32 to have died, yet not one of these cases has been recognized as an industrial accident,” Lee said.

The Korea Occupational Safety & Health Agency and Seoul National University R&DB Foundation have carried out epidemiological studies of semiconductor work sites at Samsung Electronics, but their full text has not been divulged due to factors such as Samsung Electronics’ trade secrecy. Lee urged the Ministry of Employment and Labor to disclose the results of the studies.

“In Silicon Valley in the United States, they disclose everything about the chemicals they use,” she noted. “Even the Samsung Electronics corporation there discloses all of its information according to U.S. law, but in South Korea they do not.”

Lawmakers from the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) also backed Lee up.

“The Ministry of Employment and Labor and the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service have made more conservative rulings than the courts on acknowledging industrial accidents, passing the responsibility for proving an industrial accident off onto the workers,” said GNP Lawmaker Son Beom-gyu.

Son called for major changes in the procedures for recognizing industrial accidents from Ministry of Employment and Labor and the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service (Kcomwel).

“Rather than demanding that workers completely prove a cause-and-effect relationship between their duties and the disease, it seems like it would be better for Kcomwel to simply recognize an industrial accident, presuming a substantial relationship of causality when a healthy person has contracted a disease after working for a time. Later, if it is the wish of the employer, who is the stronger party, the employer can file a lawsuit and charge, ‘You recognized an industrial accident when there was no cause-and-effect relationship.’”

In another development, GNP Lawmaker Joo Ho-young had a feud with Minister of Employment and Labor Bahk Jae-wan that left the minister fuming.

“Right now, the mood at the audit site is that there is something wrong, but it is being covered up instead of resolved, and there is an increasing feeling that labor authorities are covering it up because of the influence of the Samsung conglomerate,” Joo said.

Bahk was skeptical about the benefits of disclosing the epidemiological findings. “This issue is something that should be decided upon based on a high level of expertise, so we should be talking based on facts, not emotions,” he said.

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