It’s been so long overdue that it’s looked hopelessly far off. However, the day finally has come—Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd has agreed to a binding arbitration framework that will likely compel one of the world’s most powerful corporation to fully compensate and earnestly apologize to victims of its occupational-disease clusters.
On July 21, Samsung said it would unconditionally act on an arbitration proposal that a once-crippled mediation committee will make by October. “With a willingness to be ought to seek a solution,” a Samsung spokesman, Kim Jeong-seok told the TV network SBS. “We have decided to accept the proposal by the mediation committee.” SHARPS also agreed to the proposal.
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Samsung did an about-face
Chaired by a third party and a retired supreme court judge, Kim Ji-hyung, the mediation committee was formed in 2014 when SHARPS and Samsung began their first negotiations. In July 2015, Samsung, in effect, disabled the committeeby rejecting the committee’s proposal for an independent compensation scheme. The conglomerate has since ended negotiations and launched its own compensation program—all which prompted SHARPS to stage a sit-in at its corporate headquarters in south Seoul.
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Binding Samsung
On July 18, in its last-ditch attempt, the mediation committee upped the ante and proposed a binding arbitration process. It went further in declaring that it would dissolve itself if either party did not accept the proposal. The following are highlights although details must be worked out in the next three months:
- Samsung will begin to put in place safety measures proposed by the mediation committee by October 2018.
- Samsung will make a formal apology proposed by the committee by October 2018
- Samsung will compensate SHARPS-profiled victims under a new scheme proposed by the committee by October 2018.
- Samsung will compensate new victims for the next ten years after it pays its first compensation under the new scheme.
- SHARPS will end its sit-in within days of the formal signing of the proposal for arbitration.
The three parties will sign the proposal on July 24, Korean time. SHARPS plans to hold a rally on July 25, declaring an end to the sit-in that began on Oct 8, 2015.
Too Late? Never!
A variety of local media reports have pointed to Samsung’s need to soothe public sentiment ahead of a pending supreme court ruling for Lee Jae-yong, the rising heir of the Samsung empire who was convicted of corruption and bribery, then released earlier this year with a suspended jail term.
“Lee Jae-yong awaits trial for his bribery charges,” said Hwang Sang-ki, a SHARPS founder and father of Hwang Yu-mi, the first publicly known victim of the Samsung cluster, in an interview with the TV network JTBC. “Addressing the occupational disease issue has nothing to do with his bribery charges.” Hwang went on saying: “I have nothing to say because the occupational disease issue has nothing to do with Lee’s trial.”
“The state of affairs has been prolonged because of Samsung,” said Kyunghyang, an independent daily, in an editorial on July 22. “By accepting the proposal for arbitration, Samsung showed its willingness to proactively solve the current state of affairs.”
“Samsung has been bent solely upon shirking its responsibility,” said Hankyoreh, another independent newspaper in its editorial. “It must be made clear that addressing the leukemia crisis [at Samsung] and Samsung vice chairman Lee Jae-yong’s court trial are two separate issues.” SHARPS will release comments after signing the proposal.
On Victims
As of June 2018, SHARPS has profiled 320 victims of Samsung’s cluster. Among them 118 have died. The advocacy group has, via petition or through court filings, successfully assisted 28 victims of Samsung and others in getting workers compensation.
This article was originally published at https://stopsamsung.wordpress.com.
