Samsung Apologizes to Workers Who Had Miscarriages, Got Cancer From Factories: 'We Have Failed'

A ten-year legal battle between Samsung Electronics — the world’s biggest phone manufacturer — and workers from the company’s semiconductor and LCD factories in South Korea and China has ended with a $150 million settlement and an apology.

Samsung will pay $150 million out to workers who had miscarriages and developed cancer, multiple sclerosis and other conditions — some of which were congenital diseases that affected the employees’ children as well — from working in the factories, according to Fortune.

“We sincerely apologize to the workers who suffered from illness and their families. We have failed to properly manage health risks at our semiconductor and LCD factories,” Kim Ki-nam, the head of Samsung’s semiconductor business, told a group of workers representing the over 300 employees campaigners claim were affected by the factories’ unsafe conditions, reports Telegraph.

 

The terms of the settlement, which included a public apology from the company, were agreed to by both sides earlier this month.

At Friday’s signing of the settlement, Kim Ki-nam and, Hwang Sang-gi, the father of a dead 22-year-old Samsung factory worker, both signed their name to the formal agreement, according to Hindustan Times.

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“The apology honestly was not enough for the families of the victims but we will accept it,” Hwang Sang-gi, whose daughter died of leukemia, told Agence France-Presse. “No amount of apology will be enough to heal all the insults, the pain of industrial injuries and the suffering of losing one’s family.”

Samsung has not divulged what were the chemicals used in their semiconductor and LCD factories that caused the severe health issues among workers, claiming they are protected by trade secrecy, reports Fortune.

Samsung did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

 

 

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