Text Fwd: Asian Workers United in Condemnation of Samsung Repression of Workers

* The site was thankfully translated in Japanese in the Anatakara site.
Please see HERE.

BOYCOTT SAMSUNG!!!

"As long as the [Samsung] computers, mobile phones and televisions
that we use are produced by the infringement of Samsung workers’ rights, we are firmly determined to boycott all these Samsung products."

* Samsung is also infamous for making the net centric system in the naval combat systems(Click HERE for it), as one of the main Korean aerospace industry corporations with Hyundae and Daewoo.


* Image source: Kim Chul Soo, Voice of People
'Angry workers denounces Lee Gun-Hee, the Chairman of Samsung Corporation, Seoul, Dec. 7, 2007 '

* Image source: Workers’ Association on the Industrial Damage

Workers protest against the Samsung, urging for its acknowledgement of
the Leukemia-victimized workers
as the industrial damaged workers in the Samsung SDI on April 25, 2008'

* Image source: Media Choongchung
*A female worker, Hwang Yoo Mi who got the leukemia while working in the Samsung SDI
died in March 2007. She was 23 yaers old. In a poster, she is with her father when she was still alive.
The poster says. "DO NOT KILL ANYMORE!" Her father used to say,
if not the no-union policy of Samsung, his daughter did not die.

* Image source: Lee Jae Gak, Ohmy News
Samsung workers have a press interview against Samsung's monitoring
and threatening of the workers(Feb. 23, 2009)

* Image source: Kim Chul Soo, Voice of People

* The Samsung headquarter building was covered by egg thrown by the infuriated protesters, Seoul, Dec. 7, 2007

* Image source: Oh Seung-Joo, Ohmynews, May 13, 2008

'Even the Congress women and man are threatened by Samsung
once they begin to fight against the Samsung. Middle is Mr. Kim Seong Hwan.'


* The text below is the forwarded from Mr. Kim, Seong-Hwan (sinojo21@hanmail.net), chairman of the Samsung General Union, on Nov. 23, 2009. He has recently attended the ATNC meting in Bangkok, Thailand. The text was adapted by all 30 participants (mostly workers) from 15 countries as the result of meeting. Samsung is also infamous for making the net centric system in the naval combat system, as one of the main Korean aerospace industry corporations with Hyundae and Daewoo.
For Mr. Kim Seong-Hwan's other appeal against Samsung, see HERE.


* For Mr. Kim Seong-Hwan’s speech in the ATNC,
please see HERE (Only Korean available in the present).

Asian Workers United in Condemnation of Samsung Repression of Workers

Asian workers together with ATNC (Asian Transnational Corporation Monitoring Network) express their strong anger at the no-union policy and worker repression of Samsung. Freedom of association is a core universal human right and a fundamental right of workers that all countries including Korea have guaranteed in principle. Yet Samsung has maintained a no-union policy in all of its production sites around the world. In order to maintain this brutal no-union policy, it mobilizes all kinds of illegal and violent means.

Samsung advertises itself as a ‘world-best company’ but we know that behind this, the no-union policy is forcing workers to be sacrificed. In order to maintain the company as strictly non-union, Samsung keeps surveillance on workers that try to form unions, and even threatens and bribes them, and ruins the name of Samsung.

As long as the computers, mobile phones and televisions that we use are produced by the infringement of Samsung workers’ rights, we are firmly determined to boycott all these Samsung products.

Also, Samsung must answer for the suspicious illnesses being found among the workers at its Korean-based factories. At Samsung Semiconductor factories in Korea, so far 22 workers have been found to be struck with leukemia. It is the responsibility of Samsung to clarify and reveal the reason why they had to die and why they contracted leukemia, while working for Samsung. However Samsung shamelessly evades responsibility for their sacrifice. We cannot tell how many more workers will have to become victims in the future. We are outraged that not only does Samsung rob workers of their right to association but also robs them of their lives.

Samsung keeps a no-union policy at its factories all over Asia. When female workers tried to form a union at the local Thai Samsung company, Samsung Electro-Mechanics (Thailand) Co., Ltd., Samsung transferred them to their subsidiary company Anyon, converted many workers to subcontracted workers, and finally dismissed many of them. We in the ATNC Monitoring Network demand the restatement of the transferred and dismissed workers back to the main Samsung company in Thailand, and full compensation for their work.

As long as Samsung maintains its no-union policy, workers cannot exercise their freedom of association in the Asian region. Therefore, as long as Samsung is colluding with governments to repress workers, ATNC Monitoring Network will strongly fight together with Samsung workers. We will monitor Samsung wherever they produce or sell their products, always in solidarity with the workers who are being repressed by Samsung. We will expose the dirty reality behind Samsung’s beautiful advertisements.

Finally through the solidarity of Asian workers we will crush Samsung’s no-union policy and without fail, we will support democratic and independent unions throughout Samsung.

We strongly urge Samsung to:

· immediately abandon its no-union policy and respect the rights of labour throughout the world

· immediately acknowledge the leukemia victims at Samsung semiconductor factories as having occupational disease, not individual illness

· take all necessary measures for the health and safety of all workers who work for Samsung, including outsourced and subcontracted workers

The undersigned participants in ATNC Monitoring Network Annual Conference 2009

21 November 2009


아시아 노동자의 이름으로 삼성자본을 강력히 규탄한다!

아시아 다국적기업 감시네트워크와 함께하는 아시아의 노동자들은 삼성자본의 무노조 정책과 노동자 탄압에 대해 강력히 분노한다. 노동자들의 결사의 자유는 인류가 약속한 핵심 인권이며 한국을 비롯한 세계 모든 나라들이 보장하고 있는 노동자들의 핵심 권리이다. 그러나 삼성자본은 한국을 포함한 전세계 삼성 작업장에서 무노조 정책을 유지하고 있다. 그리고 야만적인 무노조정책을 유지하기 위해 온갖 불법적이고 폭력적인 수단을 동원하고 있다.

삼성은 자신들이 세계적 기업임을 홍보하고 있지만 우리는 그 뒤에 노동자들의 희생을 강요하는 무노조 정책이 자리잡고 있음을 주목할 수 밖에 없다. 노조를 설립하려는 노동자들을 감시하고 협박하고 회유하면서 지켜야 하는 무노조 정책은 삼성의 이름을 더럽힐 뿐이다.

만약, 우리가 사용하는 핸드폰과 컴퓨터, TV가 노동자들의 권리를 침해함으로써 만들어진 것이라면 우리는 단호하게 삼성제품 불매운동을 전개할 것이다.

또한 삼성은 한국공장에서 발생하고 있는 노동자들의 의문의 죽음에 대해 답해야 할 것이다.지금까지 22명의 노동자들이 반도체공장에서 치명적인 병에 걸려 희생당했다. 왜 그들이 병에 걸려야 하는지, 왜 그들이 죽을 수 밖에 없는지 밝혀내는 것은 바로 삼성의 책임이자 의무이다. 그러나 삼성은 그들의 희생을 외면하면서 그 모든 책임을 회피하고 있다. 앞으로도 얼마나 많은 노동자들이 희생될지는 아무도 예측할 수 없다. 노동자들의 단결권을 빼앗는 것으로도 모자라 생명까지 앗아가는 삼성의 야만성에 우리는 절망할 수 밖에 없다.

삼성은 온 아시아의 공장에서 무노조의 정책을 지키고 있다. 태국삼성현지공장은 무노조를 유지하기위해 노조를 건설하려는 태국여성노동자들을 삼성자회사(Anyon)로 강제이직시키고, 외주화시키고, 결국 많은 노동자를 정리해고 시켰다. 이에 ATNC Network는 삼성현지공장에서 정규직에서 비정규직으로 결국은 정리해고된 Anyon노동자 모두를 즉각 삼성현지공장으로 복직시켜줄 것과 완전한 노동의 댓가를 지불할 것을 요구한다.

삼성이 무노조 정책을 지속하는 한 아시아 노동자들의 결사의 자유는 보장받을 수 없다. 비록 삼성이 한국을 비롯한 아시아 각국의 정부와 결탁하여 노동자들을 탄압하고 있지만 아시아 다국적기업 감시네트워크와 함께 하는 노동자들은 더 이상 삼성이 노동자들의 생명과 권리를 침해하지 않도록 강력히 투쟁할 것이다. 우리는 삼성이 가는 곳마다 삼성을 감시할 것이며 삼성으로부터 탄압받는 노동자들과 연대할 것이다. 또한, 화려한 삼성의 광고 뒤에 숨겨진 삼성의 어두운 진실을 폭로할 것이다.

그리하여 아시아 노동자의 연대로 삼성의 무노조정책을 굴복시키고 반드시 민주적이고 독립적인 노조를 건설할 것이다.

우리는 삼성에 대해 강력히 요구한다.

- 삼성은 무노조 정책을 포기하고 노동자들의 권리를 즉각 존중하라!
- 삼성은 백혈병에 걸린 노동자들에 대해 보상하고 즉각 사과하라!
- 삼성은 작업장의 안전과 노동자들의 건강을 위해 필요한 조치를 즉각 시행하라

2009년 11월 21일

아시아 다국적기업 감시 네트워크 회의 참가자 일동