The Politics of Science and Undone Protection in the “Samsung Leukemia” Case

Abstract

A labor health dispute between a multinational corporation and patient-workers in Korea received enormous attention from 2007 to 2018, when it was finally and successfully resolved. Sick workers of Samsung Semiconductor claimed they were contaminated by toxic chemicals at their workplace that resulted in their sickness, a contested illness known as “Samsung leukemia.” In this dispute, the Korean government and Samsung used epistemological studies to deny the workers’ claims. The patient-workers politicized the industrial disease, forming a labor health movement that advocated for workers’ rights and welfare. In this long disputed process, they developed their own bottom-up science that collected evidence from their factories and connected this evidence with the claims of counter-experts. They made done “undone science,” which investigated the relationship between the unknown disease and the semiconductor industry. But the undone science has been constructed in the context of “undone protection” stemming not only from chemical exposure in factories that weigh profit over safety but also from institutional failures to protect and compensate the loss of workers’ lives and health. The successful resolution of the “Samsung leukemia” case depended on a health movement that worked toward getting undone science and undone protection done simultaneously.

The Valuation of Contaminated Life: RCA in Taiwan and the Compensation of Toxic Exposure

“…Allow me to take a very last example with a recent out-of-court decision in Korea, which offers several similarities with the case of RCA in Taiwan. As a result of exposure to all kinds of toxic chemicals, former Samsung Electronics semiconductor workers have been struck with leukemia or other cancers and severe diseases; many of them are still very young, in their twenties or thirties (Kim, Kim, and Lim 2020). In November 2018, after years of lawsuits and turbulent out-of-court arbitration, the company and the representatives of the victims finally reached an agreement to launch a compensation scheme, which will operate until at least 2028, with a maximum amount of 150 million Korean won (US$132,000) for leukemia, or 100 million won (US$88,000) for other cancers and severe diseases.…”

“…2018, 57-page unpublished document (courtesy of Jongyoung Kim with additional explanation from Jeong-ok Kong). See also Sharps (2018a), Kim, Kim, and Lim (2020).…”

Lymphohematopoietic cancer mortality among Korean semiconductor manufacturing workers

“…In South Korea, a 22-year-old female worker who had worked in the semiconductor manufacturing plants died due to acute myeloid leukemia in 2007. This story was covered by the media and gained public attention, through the efforts of a workers’ support group and her family [ 6 ]. The Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute of South Korea investigated all workers from all five semiconductor companies for a cancer cluster, and concluded that the incidence of or mortality from leukemia did not increase [ 7 ].…”