Samsung Electronics vice chairman and CEO Kwon Oh-Hyun met and delivered a consolation to leukemia patients in a meeting that got held at the head office in Gangnam, Seoul, South Korea. The CEO addressed the audience saying that the company appreciated the public's understanding and efforts to solve the issues involving former Samsung factory workers.
The Korean IT giant, on the same day, also gave a written apology to the family members of workers, who had suffered deadly diseases including various cancers, claiming that the eight-year-long dispute was now over.
The official apology came just after a partial settlement had been made between an advocacy group known as Banolim, a group of victims and the firm itself on Jan. 12. Samsung also asserted that the three parties agreed to set up an independent body that would monitor the working conditions in the company's display and semiconductor production lines.
In 2015, Samsung pledged to create a fund worth 100 billion won (US $82.6 million) for research and compensation in regard to work-related diseases. Among the 221 workers who got diagnosed with the deadly diseases, 76 had already died by January while as of now, the fund has already compensated 150 applicants and 100 victims since last September, Korea Herald reported.
In a statement released after the meeting, the IT giant said that all the issues related to leukemia dispute have already been solved. The advocacy group, however, reacted to the statement saying that Samsung's remarks were prima facie deceptions and lies.
Banolim, which is one of the two advocacy groups advocating for the former Samsung factory workers, and which is better known as the protector of health and human rights of Semiconductor workers, claimed that the agreements on apology and compensation have never been addressed in transparency, Yonhap News reported. It added that company does not acknowledge the relation between the outbreak of diseases and the working conditions. Samsung retaliated by saying that it is scientifically complicated to verify such a relation.
The advocacy group has demonstrated at the front of Samsung's headquarters since 2015. The apology came only a month after opposition-party lawmaker Sim Sang-jeung suggested of a resolution asserting that 114 Samsung factory workers have gotten sickened since the 1990s as a result of working on semiconductor assembly lines.