Tja, dieser Post liegt seit 2015 in meinen Entwürfen für einen Blogbeitrag. Er basiert auf einem E-Mail-Interview mit Dr Jeong-ok Kong von der Organisation SHARPS.
Ich wollte den Beitrag noch ergänzen um eine Einführung in die Thematik „Krebsfälle bei Samsung“, die wichtige Arbeit von SHARPS, den Kinofilmen, die dazu gedreht wurden, und den Versuchen von Samsung, das alles mit Geld zu regeln.
Nun streiten sich die Staaten um die Chiphersteller, und es ist absehbar, dass es auch in Deutschland wieder (subventionierte) Halbleiterproduktion geben wird. Sei das Interview nun also doch veröffentlicht, wenn auch mit weniger Bildern und Erläuterung als ursprünglich geplant.
Faire Computer: How and when did you become aware about the cancer cluster at Samsung facilities the first time?
Kong: The first moment that I got to know was in 2007. Hwang Yu-mi is the name of the first victim. Her father visited some activists to ask them to help him. Those activists asked me and several other people: What do you think about this case?
FC: These activists, thats what later was called SHARPS?
Kong: At that moment, there was no SHARPS. One of these activists was Lee Jongran. She used to work in a local branch of KCTU, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. The second person was Park Jin, a human rights activists. Those people heard the story of Hwang Yu-mi. They spread the story to several other activists to get some opinions. SHARPS started in November 2007.
FC: They got in contact with you because you are an occupational health doctor?
Kong: Partially yes, also I worked as a staff of KILSH (Korea Institute of Labor Safety and Health), so for them I was a kind of close friend who can be asked easily.
FC: Are there still victims calling SHARPS, and how many do you know by now?
Kong: Yes, and the number increased a lot. Now it’s more than 340. By February this year, my colleages summerized the numbers and it was 327, and for the last 3 months there were more records, I think its more than 340. But they are not all from Samsung. Most of them are from Samsung but some of them are from other electronics companies.
FC: How well is this story known in South Korea? Do you feel support by celebrities, organizations, politicians, or would you say they are not really interested in the issue?
Kong: Well first, I think we got quite a lot of support from various groups of people, including public health practicioners and professionals, and politicians, and some lawyers, doctors. But most of all – the biggest support – is from the people, especially young people who can read the internet news. You know the old generations reads the newspaper, and watches TV, but if, you know, this kind of issue is not dealt with by those major media. But younger people can read independent media and use social network service, they tend to sympathize. Last year there was a movie about the story of the first victim. It was also seen by many people, it had an audience of 500000 viewers. After that movie, people just visited our website and expressed their support.
FC: What has been the most important action or protest for getting attention?
Kong: It’s very hard to pick a single event. Its been an 8-years struggle and its still going on, so I cannot count how many protests we did. The most important thing is our point of view. So especially of the first victim Hwang Yu-mi, her father is the core, his thoughts and his viewpoint is very important for us. We all have the same or similar thoughts that this is not the problem of a few victims. This is a reflection of the general working conditions, including the deficiency of freedom of association and the deficiency of labour rights.
So, our agenda is not only the fair compensation of a specific number of people, but we are fighting for better working conditions in general in the electronics industry. It is not a charity to help some poor people. It is a human rights issue and about the dignity of workers, that’s what I think why people support us.
FC: There are two fights going on: the direct negotiations with Samsung, and also legal actions against KCOMWEL. Are there still legal issues pending against KCOMWEL?
Kong: The number of workers who asked KCOMWEL for compensation is about 60. And more than 33 cases are not decided yet, they still say they need more time to investigate the case, it takes more years, it takes really long. Its an opportunity for the company to bribe the victims. And then they decided to compensate only 4 out of 60, 3 from Samsung Semiconductors, and 1 from (24:32) magmachip?? semiconductor, and all the others were refused. 23 people were refused already, and among them are 16 cases who claimed a lawsuit against KCOMWEL, and 10 out of them are still pending, and 4 got compensation, and 2 lost. Their attitude is: OK, if you want get the compensation, you should prove the relationship between your illness and the work, and their standard is too strict to fulfill. The gate to enter this door is really small. That is the big problem, and they are very active to prevent the workers from getting the compensation.
FC: Would you agree that the court is less strict than KCOMWEL?
Kong: Yes. KCOMWEL has an attitude as if it was a private insurance company, and they try to minimize compensations. The court tries to understand what the law was made for and what is the goal or the purpose of this system. The court understands that the social insurance system should be a safety net for the workers, so actually some of their decisions had really good comments. They said: the workers rights to get compensation from the government should be guaranteed even though the workers cannot provide full scientific evidence. They also said, that in this kind of industry, the hazardous chemicals in the factory do not have been studied yet. And this fact should not be used to prevent workers from getting their right to be compensated. So I think the judges have better reasons than KCOMWEL.
FC: Why did some of the people who were not compensated by KCOMWEL did not file a lawsuit?
Kong: There are victims who gave up on the legal compensation from the government, because the KCOMWEL procedures took too long for victims to wait. The company approached to the victims and they suggested money. Companies always provide a little bit more than the compensation from KCOMWEL. If you are the brother or you yourself are sick and don’t know how long you can survive, and you don’t know how long it would take to get the compensation, seeing that they never compensate, the companys says: „Here is the money, we add 2000 dollars more, but that’s what you should do: first you should stop your process, and 2nd you should stop contacting SHARPS“. So there are victims who disappeared and who never answered our phone calls. Some of them called back later and said: we are sorry, we need the money because we suffer from proverty. Some of the victims got this kind of money and left. We dont blame them because they need the money. We think it is a very dirty strategy of the company and the government.
FC: Samsung changed its strategy, now they don’t hide the truth anymore, they are going to pay compansations. Do you agree they changed their strategy?
Kong: Well … a partial change. The company’s strategy still is: They just want to solve the problem with a small amount of money. The goal of that strategy is to minimize the meaning of this issue into a small number of patients. Their goal is to position the company as a supporter of the victims. Last year, the CEO of Samsung Electronics, Mr. Kwon, had a public annoucement that the company apologizes. But what they apologized for was not that they caused the illness of the workers. Instead, they apologized for not taking good care of sick workers, and promised to now take better care. They still don’t mention that working at Samsung made them sick. So that’s no apology about the management of working conditions. The fundamental stratetgy is the same, but their attitude has changed in two major ways: The first way is that they are very active in terms of providing the money – and they want to do that officially. Before this negotation happend, Samsung tried to bribe indivual victims secretly, but now they learned that some people cannot be silenced by bribing, so they changed into official provision of the money.
The second change is: Initially, the company asked for negotiations, but they found it not so easy. They argue that SHARPS demands too much. Now SHARPS has two enemies: one is the company, the other is the group of six persons who left SHARPS. We do not want to blame the victims. We also do not want to have a deal with them. Mr Kwong said: „If you cannot wait for several months, if you really can’t wait, then leave. I am sad to loose you, but I cannot force you to stay with us. But please do not tell me to quit, I will stay with SHARPS, because I do not want to make any single father like me in the future, And I cannot give up on the prevention.“
FC: So Samsung already paid compensation to the persons who left SHARPS?
Kong: No they do not have compensated at all. If it’s really urgent for them in terms of money, they can ask Samsung for the money. They would reject and argue that.. they try to replace sharps. Thats what we confused for a while. The 6-persons group never asked for individual compensation for several months. They try to make SHARPS lower its demands. Those people demanded negotations under a mediation process. They tried to replace SHARPS.
So now, both the company and the 6-persons groups are demanding to have an agreement on the compensation first. And the prevention shall be discussed laters, thats what they are arguing. The 6ppl groups want the amount of money to be in secret. I think they then should individually negotiate with the company. It is very sad to see how the money changes the people.
Dr. Kong bei einer Festnahme während einer Demontration vor der Samsung-Zentrale am 2.4.2010
FC: The compensation scheme Samsung currently offers does not seem to include all of the victims you know. Last year in Berlin, we met Mrs Park. Will she or does she even want to get money from Samsung with this compensation scheme?
Kong: She cannot be compensated by the Samsung standard, because her breast cancer was diagnosed 14 years after she left Samsung. Samsung decided that the cancer should be diagnosed 10 years after leaving the company. They argue that their standards are based on scientifc evidience. But there are different evidiences about the latency of cancer and the duration of the exposure. I wish they would change their attitude.
Pan Yumi, our first victim, is neither available for this compensation scheme. There is a law that rules that if the company exposes a worker to specific chemicals, these worker need to get a special health check. For example if you are work with Bencene, you should be monitored for bencene toxicity. But Yumi did not get that special health check.
FC: Did her father get money from KCOMWEL?
Kong: Yes. According to the court, her disease is an occupational illness. So the court has more reasonable standards than the court. Samsung considers this money not as compensation, they just call it ’supportive money‘. If they really wanted to be a charity, and be seen by the people as very generous, they could easily extend their criteria. Because there are people who are suffering from poverty. So if you want to make it under the name of charity, you can do it. Or if you want to make a compensation, then you should name it and apologize, and take full responsibility. But currently ,they do not want to do it. They don’t take any responsibility.
FC: Do you know whether the working conditions in Samsung facilities in the last few years or months got any better? In terms of chemicals?
Kong: We actually got some paarts of a government report who made a special investigation at a Samsung semiconductor factory in 2013. The full report is not available to us, only the conclusion part of the governmental report is public. And they say the factory occupational health safety is not good enough. they say the company has a lot of internal regulations because of the social issues with leukemia. But these regulations do not work at all.
FC: What should we as a consumer or civil society do?
Kong: We really want to have a better association to people in other countries, who can watch, what we can not. For example, china has a new assembly line in china, and we cannot watch them. Now they are moving the hazards into invisible areas, and they are killing workers there. This is calling for more attention for this issue. SHARPS is going to participate a meeting in thailand this summer of Good Electronics networks. They have some activists in china. we need to interact with these groups in order to archieve our goals. international collaboration is what we really need.
Dr. Kong in Berlin, 2014