Have Samsung been lying to employees about what chemicals they're being exposed to?

[Master Disaster]

In recent years more than 200 Samsung employees have gotten sick and 76 of them have died, a group of victims and family members is now claiming this is because of the chemicals they've been exposed to while working at Samsung. 

 

The victims are in the process of claiming compensation from Samsung but are claiming that the electronics giant is hiding behind the trade secrets act to hide exactly what these chemicals are in order to prevent this claim from succeeding. Without the knowledge of exactly which chemicals they've been exposed to its impossible for them to prove a link. 

 

Quote

The families of workers say there are about 200 cases of employees contracting serious diseases, including cancer, an investigation by the Associated Press news agency found.

Samsung withheld the information saying it came under trade secrets, said AP.

Samsung said the safety of its workers was its "number one priority".

A group of workers' families has said 76 people have died due to contact with the chemicals.

The victims need the information to qualify for compensation.

They allege Samsung withheld the information from South Korean authorities under the justification of trade secrets, an accusation the company firmly denied.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37042199

 

Holy crap Samsung, if 200 of your workers are sick and 76 have died I would of thought you would want to know why. I mean without workers you have no business. 

[ThinkWithPortals]

"So that's why they've all got third arms growing out of their chests!" Samsung 2016

 

In all seriousness, that's pretty horrid. I would have thought they'd care more about their workforce, they are the ones who really drive the company.

[rattacko123]

Samsung has  489,000 employees according to Mr. Google
The average cancer rate is about 300 per 100,000 people per year, so 200 people out of 489,000 people contracting cancer isn't anything abnormal

[Master Disaster]

4 minutes ago, rattacko123 said:

Samsung has  489,000 employees according to Mr. Google
The average cancer rate is about 300 per 100,000 people, so 200 people out of 489,000 people contracting cancer isn't anything abnormal

200 people from one company contracting serious illness (no one said they've all got cancer btw) and 76 dying within a few years "isn't anything abnormal?" Do the pigs in your local area fly? 

 

You realise your measuring the global cancer rate against the employees of a single company, right? 

[rattacko123]

11 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

200 people from one company contracting serious illness (no one said they've all got cancer btw) and 76 dying within a few years "isn't anything abnormal?" Do the pigs in your local area fly? 

 

You realise your measuring the global cancer rate against the employees of a single company, right? 

Samsung is a MASSIVE company, and I would assume the Global cancer rate would apply to employees of any company including samsung. The death rate for cancer is around 150 per 100,000 people so 76 people dying from serious illness isn't surprising. It doesn't say what illness they had, and there is little evidence for chemicals, so I'm just saying that the death rate for the employees isn't that high, and is actually low compared to the rate of cancer death.
EDIT: It's not clear how many samsung employees are factory workers, so the rate of death may actually be high, but it's not clear based on the article

[Dobbsjr]

30 minutes ago, ThinkWithPortals said:

"So that's why they've all got third arms growing out of their chests!" Samsung 2016

 

In all seriousness, that's pretty horrid. I would have thought they'd care more about their workforce, they are the once who really drive the company.

Samsung is a chaebol. The only person that matters in the company is Lee Kun Hee. 

[Master Disaster]

2 minutes ago, rattacko123 said:

Samsung is a MASSIVE company, and I would assume the Global cancer rate would apply to employees of any company including samsung. The death rate for cancer is around 150 per 100,000 people so 76 people dying from serious illness isn't surprising.

The global cancer rate is measured against 6 billion people, not 400,000 people. 

[Dobbsjr]

3 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

The global cancer rate is measured against 6 billion people, not 400,000 people. 

Are you from the 90's? The world population has been at 7 billion for a few years now.

[Prysin]

56 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

In recent years more than 200 Samsung employees have gotten sick and 76 of them have died, a group of victims and family members is now claiming this is because of the chemicals they've been exposed to while working at Samsung. 

 

The victims are in the process of claiming compensation from Samsung but are claiming that the electronics giant is hiding behind the trade secrets act to hide exactly what these chemicals are in order to prevent this claim from succeeding. Without the knowledge of exactly which chemicals they've been exposed to its impossible for them to prove a link. 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37042199

 

Holy crap Samsung, if 200 of your workers are sick and 76 have died I would of thought you would want to know why. I mean without workers you have no business. 

200 out of 470.000+ employees...

 

That is less then 0.02%.... 76 deaths out of that makes for 0.000something% of total work-force.

I bet Samsung has more deaths in their heavy metal construction divisions then this.

[Prysin]

19 minutes ago, Dobbsjr said:

Are you from the 90's? The world population has been at 7 billion for a few years now.

no no no.... according to tumblr feminist theory, men arent worth anything. As women make up 53% of the global "population" we are barely about 3.6billion people. Due to this, overpopulation is also a myth, created by the allmighty patriarchy and its followers in order to starve women so they can fit their ideal body standards.

[Dobbsjr]

2 minutes ago, Prysin said:

no no no.... according to tumblr feminist theory, men arent worth anything. As women make up 53% of the global "population" we are barely about 3.6billion people. Due to this, overpopulation is also a myth, created by the allmighty patriarchy and its followers in order to starve women so they can fit their ideal body standards.

My life has been a lie. Since I am male, it must be the morally right thing to kill myself. 

[RuffRuffmcgruff]

4 hours ago, Prysin said:

no no no.... according to tumblr feminist theory, men arent worth anything. As women make up 53% of the global "population" we are barely about 3.6billion people. Due to this, overpopulation is also a myth, created by the allmighty patriarchy and its followers in order to starve women so they can fit their ideal body standards.

I cannot flaw this logic.

[Sephiroth]

6 hours ago, rattacko123 said:

Samsung is a MASSIVE company, and I would assume the Global cancer rate would apply to employees of any company including samsung. The death rate for cancer is around 150 per 100,000 people so 76 people dying from serious illness isn't surprising. It doesn't say what illness they had, and there is little evidence for chemicals, so I'm just saying that the death rate for the employees isn't that high, and is actually low compared to the rate of cancer death.
EDIT: It's not clear how many samsung employees are factory workers, so the rate of death may actually be high, but it's not clear based on the article

I'm sorry, but your statistics are innately flawed. Let's start in agreeing with your arguments for how massive Samsung is, and it's global reach: the article only mentioned Korea when referencing employees and judiciary action. Of Samsung's employees, only about 1/4 of them work in Korea, roughly 100,000; while this still fits well into the statistics you've provided, it certainly does raise that ratio. Furthermore, global cancer rate is no longer applicable; you'd need to find the specific statistics for Korea (Note, this is currently just shy of 118 deaths per 100,000: http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/all-cancers/by-country/). Then, you'd also need to exclude stats coming from retirees/old people not working, as well as young children, effectively limiting it to working age Koreans (estimate on average 17-71; official retirement age is 60, but in reality most people tend to have to work much later than that). Next limit this sample to factory workers, to people who would actually be exposed to potentially harmful chemicals. You will find the number of employees far below 100,000 but the number of cancer deaths and sicknesses will remain the same, which ends up being an abnormally large amount. Don't believe me? There was released today by the Associated Press a new article which (in my opinion) is far better at detailing the suspicious activity going on: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ea1b8280b50b4ad3a9bdcd9def798914/2-words-keep-sick-samsung-workers-data-trade-secrets . It's not just about the sicknesses and deaths; the overwhelming majority of cases involve some form of "trade secrets" which prevents the government from forcing Samsung to disclose the chemicals they are using, and thus makes it impossible for any of those cases to proceed, especially against the corporate lawyers Samsung is able to have protect itself. Samsung has been asking the government to prevent the disclosure of the chemicals used, even though Korean judges have requested this information. Those 76 deaths? The people were in their 20's and 30's, which only further adds to the suspicion of harmful chemicals.

 

 

[Sephiroth]

7 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

In recent years more than 200 Samsung employees have gotten sick and 76 of them have died, a group of victims and family members is now claiming this is because of the chemicals they've been exposed to while working at Samsung. 

 

The victims are in the process of claiming compensation from Samsung but are claiming that the electronics giant is hiding behind the trade secrets act to hide exactly what these chemicals are in order to prevent this claim from succeeding. Without the knowledge of exactly which chemicals they've been exposed to its impossible for them to prove a link. 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37042199

 

Holy crap Samsung, if 200 of your workers are sick and 76 have died I would of thought you would want to know why. I mean without workers you have no business. 

Yo, op, there's a better article to use/include as a citation, since many people seem to be really unconvinced, and the BBC is rather lacking in delivering information which explains why the whole situation is shady: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ea1b8280b50b4ad3a9bdcd9def798914/2-words-keep-sick-samsung-workers-data-trade-secrets

[RedRound2]

Can't believe there are actually some people justifying this. Definitely wouldn't be the case if it ever was the fruit company even though they don't directly manufacture anything

 

The article the OP has linked doesn't have enough information

 

Here's a better one from huffing ton post with much more details

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/08/10/samsung-workers-sick-dying_n_11424158.html

 

Quote

Samsung) once offered me 1 billion won ($864,000), asking me to stay silent. The idea was to deny her illness was an occupational disease and to leave me without any power to fight back.''

 

Quote

In a situation where people's lives are at stake, (Samsung) brought uninformed kids from the countryside and acted like money is everything, using them as if they were disposable cups.''

 

Quote

"There was never any education (at the factory) about what kind of chemicals could be bad so that we could be more careful.''
— KIM MI-SEON, 36, a former Samsung display worker who lost her sight after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Kim lives in a government-subsidized apartment with her sisters.

This Is pure negligence and Samsung should be fined very heavily for this. Can't believe it took this long to come out into the press

[Admiral Naismith]

There has never been a large-scale manufacturer that has ever considered the safety of their employees to be a priority. They're only concerned about liability. Hence why the progressive movement was so violent... If you can make it so you can't be held liable, you don't need to bother with that costly safety bullshit. South East Asia could really use a progressive movement like 'western' nations had during the industrial revolution. Just hopefully they can hold on to the rights they earn unlike the U.S. who lets them slowly get stripped away due to money and ignorance among the population...

 

What this has to do with this is that Samsung could have easily decided that the cost of losing secrets if they had better safety was greater than paying for the potential lawsuits. Car companies did this sort of thing several times, so really wouldn't put it past a corporation like Samsung to think that way.

 

But we shall see as this gets more attention whether it's people going for a cheap money grab, sensationalist news, Samsung being a dick, or some combination.

[SansVarnic]

 

[Trik'Stari]

15 hours ago, ThinkWithPortals said:

"So that's why they've all got third arms growing out of their chests!" Samsung 2016

 

In all seriousness, that's pretty horrid. I would have thought they'd care more about their workforce, they are the ones who really drive the company.

"Now how can we put that third arm to good use?" - upper management

[Castdeath97]

4 hours ago, huilun02 said:

Why is there no context?

Locale? Place of work? Out of how many people working there?

 

Without that information, there is no basis for allegations.

The AP article linked in this thread has more information than the bbc one, so it may carry what you seek.

[patrickjp93]

On 8/12/2016 at 4:25 AM, Master Disaster said:

The global cancer rate is measured against 6 billion people, not 400,000 people. 

No, it is measured among 200,000 people. No one has the resources to actually measure the entire world population.

[Prysin]

31 minutes ago, patrickjp93 said:

No, it is measured among 200,000 people. No one has the resources to actually measure the entire world population.

Nor is it practically possible to build such a statistic even if funding was a non issue. Large portions of the world doesnt have the medical facilities or even medical competence among doctors to diagnose cancer. We struggle even to diagnose the right kind of cancer in the western world, despite our seemingly allmighty medical expertice.

Screening 7 billion people, or a representational value of people, would take so long that your statistics would be irrelevant by the time of release due to generational changes in both enviromental, genetical and regional factors.

[Clanscorpia]

21 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

 

That one quote about MS: 

Quote

Environmental Toxins and MS

Although it's natural to wonder whether chemicals in the environment play a role in the development of multiple sclerosis, there is no conclusive research that ties MS to chemical exposures. Questions about the impact of pollution or toxins come up whenever people perceive a "cluster" of MS diagnoses in one geographic area, implying that some element found in that location might be triggering the development of MS.

Researchers have theorized that lead, mercury, organic solvents, and air pollution might contribute to the risk of MS, but they have not established a clear link. Research in this area is ongoing.

There is 0 proof right now so that lady can't make a claim anyway. From this website http://www.everydayhealth.com/multiple-sclerosis/symptoms/multiple-sclerosis-environment/

[Kimmers]

I've only heard horror stories of people working under Samsung. I know several engineers who have since left and now work for US companies with far better treatment. I can't imagine the situation for those who aren't even engineers. 

[Jumper118]

all companies say workers safety is number 1 priority.............. 

[abazigal]

Don't you know? It's news only if Apple is involved.