Working for Samsung Can Cause Cancer, Employee Death Proves

Samsung may have managed to shrug off the worst of the backlash from discovering illegal working conditions at some of its manufacturers due to the facilities not actually belonging to it.

However, a new development has ignited a fire underneath it again, one that won't be so easily dodged, as it involves one of the company's own chip manufacturing facilities.

A female worker at a Samsung Electronics factory in South Korea developed breast cancer from exposure to carcinogenic elements.

She passed away not long ago (March 2012), at the age of 36, and Samsung has already paid a compensation for her death (as dictated by The Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service), but that isn't the end of the matter.

The agency believes that exposure to organic solvents and radiation between the years 1995 and 2000 caused the illness and subsequent death.

The Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service is unusual among worker safety agencies in that it operates independently from the companies themselves.

Workers who believe they grew sick because of their work environment file a complaint directly, not through their employer. Both the worker and the company have the right to appeal if the investigation doesn't yield satisfactory results.

This is the fourth case when an employee from Samsung, or his/her family, was awarded compensation for work condition shortcomings.

Two of the other three also died from cancer, while the remaining worker was diagnosed with aplastic anemia.

Samsung won't be filing an appeal against the Welfare Service's decision, but there is also no word (yet) on any sort of change coming to the chip factory. This is probably owed to the fact that there have been over 30 complaints claiming that working for Samsung got people ill, many of which were thrown out.

We'll be keeping an eye out for any updates in the matter.