Slashdot Mirror
Samsung Apologizes For Workers' Leukemia
itwbennett writes: "In an emailed statement, Samsung offered its 'sincerest apology' for the sickness and deaths of some of its workers, vowing to compensate those affected and their families. So far there have been 26 reported victims of blood cancers who worked in Samsung's Gi-Heung and On-Yang semiconductor plants. Ten have died. Other alleged workplace-related illnesses include miscarriages, infertility, hair loss, blood disorders, kidney troubles and liver disease."
"If they don't like cancer, they're free to find another job!"
Yes?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Addendum: OK, TFA says Samsung will compensate the families. Seems like something that should have been in TFS.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
vowing to compensate those affected and their families.
Could you not even finish reading the first sentence of the summary?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
workers comp issue so under workers comp you do not use your own obamacare plan.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to have gotten proper filter masks and ventilation for the workers?
Twinstiq, game news
How was it contracted?
Multiple confirmed cancer/disease cases directly attributed to the Giheung facility where solar cells are produced. Clean energy for all!
In an emailed statement, Samsung offered its 'sincerest apology' for the sickness and deaths of some of its workers, vowing to compensate those affected and their families.
First sentence of the summary.
First.
Sentence.
Didn't you know? There's a world shortage of "Saw-ree" right now.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
As opposed to denying any problems for more than 7 years and letting a number of the affected workers die of the cancer they got from the job? Yeah, Samsung was ever so benevolent...
I'm installing Samsung printer drivers now. I think I know where the leukemia comes from...
While I don't know the backstory, I applaud Samsung for stepping up and taking responsibility for the problem and compensating the workers who have suffered. SamSung over the years has struck me as a responsible company over and over, for multiple diverse reasons. This is just another to ad to the list.
A company cannot help that there are problems, but it can help by trying to do the right thing afterwards, and trying not to be evil.
I note that a number of the slashdot comments are cynical to the extreme, but I doubt any of the posters have more information then I do. It's too easy to be cynical while living in the 1 percent of the worlds wealth. I expect it's even easier to be cynical when you aren't.
And yet, their employees do not jump off the factory roofs.
Well, this is the first article ever on Slashdot about Samsung killing its employees. (It was reported elsewhere, but on Slashdot I'm generally surprised about the headline calling them "Samsung" and not "Apple supplier"). Numbers about other deaths at Samsung factories haven't been reported. Seems unlikely that their employees die from cancer and are invulnerable to accidents. Numbers of suicides haven't been reported. Seems unlikely that there aren't any, but reporters in South Korea trying to report negatives about Samsung tend to lose their jobs quickly.
Yes, his not reading the summary was precious. As is your sig in this story.
They should make these people millionaires (in U.S. currency). Ultimately there is no compensation to the victims families for this.
If the plant is killing them slowly with leukaemia, maybe they'd be better off if they did?
Seriously though, the suicide rate at Apple contracted Foxconn plants was blown way out of proportion. The suicide rate at the plants was LOWER than in the general population. Try to have a little perspective. People commit suicide all the time. It's tragic, and doesn't usually have anything to do with the one specific job they were working at the time. As far as I know, Foxconn employees were never barred from quitting; if the conditions were that bad, they really could have left. Instead, many of them were disappointed that the maximum number of hours they could work was cut. (This is, by and large, a Chinese cultural thing. They believe that you should work hard and make a lot of money even if the job sucks because you can quit and take all that money with you. My Chinese half of the family is often recommending that I move to somewhere terrible and work for tonnes of money for a few years; they don't understand that I'd rather enjoy my job and make less.)
From a law firm (biased, perhaps): http://consumerjusticegroup.co...
"Workers at IBM and at other microchip fabs, or "fabrication plants," are exposed to benzene and other toxic carcinogens that can cause birth defects, leukemia, and other serious, debilitating medical conditions. While "bunny suits" prevent dust, hair, and skin cells from coming into contact with microchips, too often not enough is done in microchip factories to prevent the person inside the suit from breathing dangerous cancer-causing chemicals like benzene and formaldehyde while at the workplace. Since 2000, IBM has faced lawsuits from more than 250 former microchip plant employees. And since 2000, IBM has worked to suppress scientific findings showing the increase of cancer incidences in their microchip plant workers."
And also: ... "We found out that IBM had two faces in this community," said Matt LaTessa, a barber whose shop is on Monroe Street in The Plume. "One was a nice face, beautiful, big buildings and a lot of jobs. But underneath they were rotten. They were poisoning us." ..."
"Life In The Plume: IBM's Pollution Haunts a Village"
http://www.syracuse.com/specia...
"But for much of its history, Big Blue routinely polluted its birthplace. Tons of industrial solvents used to clean computer parts were dumped down drains or leached from leaky pipes into the ground for years before environmental rules required that such "spills" be reported. In 2002, scientists discovered the ground was exacting its revenge: The large underground chemical plume was releasing gases into homes and offices in a 350-acre swath south of the plant. The main chemical was a liquid cleaning agent called trichloroethylene, or TCE, that has been linked to cancer and other illnesses. IBM took responsibility and launched a multimillion-dollar cleanup. At the same time, the company announced plans to sell the plant and to ship many jobs overseas.
Versus:
"MD Anderson Taps IBM Watson to Power "Moon Shots" Mission Aimed at Ending Cancer, Starting with Leukemia"
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us...
"MD Anderson's Oncology Expert Advisor powered by IBM Watson is designed to integrate the knowledge of MD Anderson's clinicians and researchers, and to advance the cancer center's goal of treating patients with the most effective, safe and evidence-based standard of care available. Starting with the fight against Leukemia, MD Anderson's Oncology Expert Advisor is expected to help MD Anderson clinicians develop, observe and fine-tune treatment plans for patients, while helping them recognize adverse events that may occur throughout the care continuum. The cognitive-powered technology is also expected to help researchers advance novel discoveries."
Although, consider:
"Eat For Health - The Anti-Cancer Diet"
https://www.drfuhrman.com/libr...
Also Vitamin D and iodine can help prevent cancer...
When I worked at IBM Watson as a software developer, part of that time my workstation was put in windowless old labs that has been used for who knows what... To his credit, my supervisor tried really hard to make sure the second lab had been fully renovated...
Someone from Switzerland who saw other windowless offices at Watson said all that would be illegal in Switzerland, to have people working in windowless rooms... Not sure what the Swiss lawas are on chemical exposure... Back then was when I thought a lot about how all fabs and related labs should be 100% roboticized on the production floor. Bunny suits in that sense are such a quaint 20th century idea...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I suggest you follow your own advise. The population at large includes many groups that have a high suicide risk. You should be comparing against employees at other firms; IIRC someone did that and they found on that measure that the suicide levels at Foxconn were well above standard but I can't be arsed hunting out a source so feel free to take with a hefty pinch of salt.
Nice try, but the situation at Foxconn factories where Apple products are made is not really comparable. This is about Samsung's factories in SK, where standards are generally high and wages quite reasonable. Workers don't live at the factories, and aren't forced to do insane shift patterns. They don't use child or unpaid "intern" labour.
What happened here is that they had all the safety equipment and protection in place, but there was pressure from management to disable it in order to keep production up. Obviously it's wrong and those involved should be punished, but it isn't anything like the situation at Foxconn that lead to so many suicides and generally intolerable working conditions.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
How many employees work at these plants? How do the per-capita rates of these illnesses compare to the rates for those not employed by Samsung? "26 workers contracted leukemia!" sounds bad, but if the rates are commensurate with the overall population then Samsung probably isn't at fault.
(Please note that I'm bitching about shoddy reporting, not trying to be an industry apologist.)
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
I disagree that using other factories is somehow a better measure. The conditions that lead to suicide are multi-faceted, and a job is only going to be part of the equation, one way or another. The population at large is a good baseline--is a worker's life in one of these factory's better or worse than the general populace, all things be being equal? If the suicide rate deviates strongly above that baseline, then there's probably a fundamental problem with the factory. If the rate is no higher, than you're probably seeing the normal tragedy (normal tragedy, yeesh--but it is) of life in that society. If it's significantly lower, you're probably seeing that the life of that worker is better than the populace. They've got more factors that are keeping them alive than the people outside those walls. That some factories are better than others merely speaks to those situations being better than life without those jobs. It's exemplary either way, honestly.
who just had a heart attack: http://www.forbes.com/sites/go...
"The man credited with turning Samsung into one of the world's most powerful companies is in recovery after suffering a heart attack on Saturday night. In an official statement Samsung confirmed Chairman Lee Kun-hee, 72, was rushed to hospital and treated with CPR. Both the company and hospital officials have declined to say how long he is expected to be hospitalised."
We have a Samsung SSD, a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Tablet, and quite a few Samsung LCD displays, among other things Samsung. Thanks for the quality products, and thanks for apologizing about the leukemia risk among Samsung workers and offering to help them and their families. Now here is some advice that could help Chairman Lee Kun-hee back to good health. I hope he gets it in time. Please let the appropriate people know if you are connected to Samsung.
Aggressive nutritional therapy by eating a lot of vegetables and some other things can reverse heart disease, as practiced by Dr. Joel Fuhrman and others:
https://www.drfuhrman.com/dise...
"When it comes to combating heart disease, most information sources promote drugs and surgery as the only viable lines of defense. As a result, the demand for high-tech, expensive and largely ineffective medical care is overwhelming, causing medical costs and insurance rates to skyrocket. This chase for "cures" is both financially devastating and futile. Morbidity and premature mortality from heart disease continue to rise with no sign of abating. Interventional cardiology offers only partial benefits, since these procedures do not remove the causes of the problem. Attempts to intervene with invasive procedures or surgery after the damage already has been done have not been shown to offer a significant reduction in cardiac deaths.
We need to keep in mind that angioplasty and bypass surgery have some significant adverse outcomes, including heart attacks, stroke and death. These invasive procedures only attempt to treat a small segment of the diseased heart, usually with only temporary benefit. Patients treated with angioplasty and bypass surgery continue to experience progressive disability, and most still die prematurely as a result of their heart disease.
The average person is not aware that there are safer, more effective options available. Unfortunately, government agencies are often slow to respond to new scientific information and continue to advocate outdated recommendations. Economic and political forces also make it difficult for Americans to be clearly informed that heart disease is self-induced and totally avoidable by eating a diet of nutritional excellence."
The same is no doubt true in many other countries, probably including South Korea. Even GW Bush got scammed in that sense:
"Was George W. Bush's stent necessary?"
http://www.drfuhrman.com/libra...
"President Bush needed aggressive nutritional counseling and potentially life-saving nutritional information. It sounds like he was not properly informed of these studies documenting the ineffectiveness of PCI and the value of the proper dietary intervention. If not, I consider that malpractice. Every potential candidate for angioplasty (PCI) should know that their disease can be effectively reversed via superior nutrition and that surgical interventions are not protective against future events. Remember too, that almost half of all those on optimal medical therapy for high cholesterol and high blood pressure, still ultimately suffer heart attacks. Was President Bush informed about Dr. Ornish's Lifestyle Heart Trial, which scientifically documented that lifestyle changes alone can reverse coronary artery disease? Even President Clinton could have shared his ex
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.