South Korean court docket says employee’s rare sickness linked to Samsung
South Korea’s Supreme Court said a former employee in a Samsung LCD manufacturing unit who changed into recognized with more than one sclerosis should be identified as having an occupationally brought on disease, overturning decrease court docket verdicts that held a lack of proof against the employee. In a milestone choice that might resource different sickened tech people suffering to prove the foundation of their sicknesses, the Supreme Court dominated there has been a widespread hyperlink between Lee Hee-jin’s disease and workplace hazards and her working conditions.
Lower courts had denied her declaration, partly because no facts of her place of job conditions had been publicly available. The Labor Ministry and Samsung refused to reveal them when a decrease court docket requested the records, mentioning change secrets. In its ruling Tuesday, the courtroom said the dearth of proof, due to Samsung’s refusal to offer the statistics and an inadequate investigation by using the government, should no longer be held against the sickened worker. Instead, it stated, such unique circumstances should be considered in favor of the employee.
Lee, 33, started to work at a Samsung LCD manufacturing facility in Cheonan, south of Seoul, in 2002 when she was an excessive faculty senior. She evaluated almost 100 show panels in keeping with an hour on a conveyor belt, searching out faulty panels and wiping them with isopropyl alcohol. She labored next to meeting traces that used other chemical compounds. Three years after joining Samsung Electronics, she first said the signs of multiple sclerosis, an unprecedented sickness that affects the valuable fearful device. The average age of reporting more than one sclerosis in South Korea is 38. She left Samsung in 2007.
Lee first filed a claim in 2010 with a central authority agency, which denied her compensation request. She took her case to the courts and lost two times earlier than Tuesday’s victory. “It was a long journey, but I’m so glad,” Lee stated by text message. She is the 1/3 Samsung worker to record more than one sclerosis and win in the courtroom but the first to win inside the Supreme Court, in step with SHARPS, a group that advocates technology workers’ fitness.
The Supreme Court said the high degree of physical and intellectual stress in her job, long-running hours, everyday use of a chemical, viable exposure to other chemical substances used on close by assembly strains, and a loss of an own family history of the ailment were enough to rule inside the employee’s prefer.
The ruling is a blow to Samsung Electronics and 2 government corporations, the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service and the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency. The corporations levy normal charges on employers and determine repayment whilst people record claims of occupational illnesses. The Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service turned into the defendant in the case.
A panel of 4 Supreme Court justices faulted the authorities organizations for failing to degree employees’ exposure tiers at some stage in their early research. The ruling also stated that Samsung Electronics and the Labor Ministry refused to disclose information about chemical pollution on the LCD manufacturing facility, making it impossible for the worker to show the kind of chemical substances she changed into exposed to or the extent of exposure.
Lee’s case became said using The Associated Press in 2016 as considered one of numerous wherein the government and Samsung denied people key protection statistics had to win country compensation. Samsung declined to comment Wednesday on the Supreme Court ruling. In its decision, the very best court identified for the primary time the problems of proving occupational diseases for employees in the speedy-converting technology industry.
In the semiconductor and show industries with a shorter history than more traditional industries, little research on the occupational disorder is to be had. The varieties of chemical substances used in manufacturing change often, and the names of chemical substances are often taken into consideration exchange secrets and techniques. The courtroom urged the government enterprise to be genuine to its mission to shield employees suffering from grave illnesses and a shortage of income, now not to find fault either with the worker or business enterprise. It stated the business enterprise’s role as an issuer of social insurance is even extra important within the present-day tech industry, which has unknown risks which can involve worker sacrifices.
Activists led via SHARPS have campaigned for years to reform the compensation gadget, announcing it’s far unfair that people are the ones with the onus of proving their case. The trouble of acquiring state compensation has left many people with few options. In 2015, Samsung presented an economic resource that blanketed scientific charges and a few incomes for workers with any of 26 sicknesses along with cancer and more than one sclerosis. Some workers or their families rejected what they called a unilateral, secretive deal and demanded that Samsung express regret simply for the illnesses and offer transparent compensation.
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