|
| Login Register | Home | Supply | Opinion | Environment | Reports | Careers | Site Features |
|
Campaign highlights Samsung workers' cancer deaths
The campaign is demanding that Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. take responsibility for the hazards of chip manufacturing and compensates workers harmed by those hazards. The lobbying groups include: the Asian Network for the Rights Of Occupational Accident Victims (ANROAV), Supporters for the Health and Rights of People in the Semiconductor industry (SHARPs), which is part of the Korean Institute of Labour Safety and Health (KILSH), the Korean Metal Workers' Union (KMWU). The campaign has been timed to coincide with the third anniversary of the death of Yu-mi Hwang, a Samsung semiconductor factory worker, who died from leukemia aged 22 on March 6, 2007. Her death was assumed originally to be the unfortunate result of a natural abnormality. Yu-mi Hwang worked at a semiconductor factory in Gi-Heung, south of Seoul, cleaning wafers, according to a video made by the SHARPs organization. Yu-mi Hwang's father, Sang-gi Hwang, conducted research into his daughter's death and in the video reports a number of similar deaths and unusual health conditions, which he asserts are related to the working conditions. In the video Sang-gi Hwang claims that a woman working on the same machine as Yu-mi Hwang also died of leukemia after a previous co-worker left work after suffering a miscarriage. Numerous other claims are made in the video including that Samsung has always denied responsibility for what it claims are "personal" health problems. No scientific case, either biochemical or statistical, is made either to prove or disprove a link between worker ill-health at Samsung and the chemicals in use there. Chemicals used in wafer fabs and other types of electronics factories have been blamed for worker ill-health in the past, with law suits brought against IBM in 2003. Concerns were also raised about cancer clusters at a National Semiconductor wafer fab in Greenock, Scotland. In the first high-profile case, in June 1986, the Boccardo law firm in San Jose, California, won an undisclosed settlement in a suit that had alleged Fairchild Semiconductor had polluted soil and, potentially, groundwater. The pollution was said to have caused birth defects, cancer and miscarriages among residents of a nearby multimillion-dollar housing development. The SHARPs video could be viewed here when this story was first posted. Related links and articles:
Cancer case against IBM roils industry IBM says litho chemical better for environment
|
|
|
|
