Samsung Electronics has refuted its labor union’s claim that many of its workers suffer from mental health problems such as sleep disorders and depression.
In its online newsroom on March 4, Samsung Electronics claimed that the labor union’s claims regarding a report on a survey on the status of labor health at Samsung Electronics and its affiliates are not true and that the labor union exaggerated one-sided answers of some respondents as if they were true.
On the same day, a coalition of Samsung Electronics’ affiliated labor unions, including the Korea Metal Workers’ Union and the Samsung Electronics Workers’ Union, made a presentation of the report on an investigation into the occupational health conditions of employees at Samsung Electronics affiliates at the Yeouido National Assembly.
Unionists said they surveyed 1,801 workers at four worksites -- 761 at Samsung Electronics, 894 at Samsung Electronics Service, 36 at Samsung SDI and 110 at Samsung Electronics Sales -- for seven months from July 2023 and found that two out of three workers suffered from sleep disorders.
The prevalence of depression was 46.4 percent at Samsung Electronics Service, 46.7 percent at Samsung SDI, 45.8 percent at Samsung Electronics, and 53.1 percent at Samsung Electronics’ business support division. The union also claimed that the rate of suicidal thoughts among workers at the four sites was 7.1 to 12.8 times the average of the general population.
“The labor union is distorting facts based on a survey of a few workers at four companies -- Samsung Electronics Service, Samsung Electronics Sales, Samsung SDI, and Samsung Electronics,” Samsung responded.
“The results of medical examinations of employees showed that the labor union exaggerated the facts by blowing up the figures by 10 times in some cases and by dozens of times in extreme cases,” Samsung said. “In the case of cancer and rare diseases, the survey was conducted in a vague and subjective way, such as asking if they had seen or heard of it around them, rather than statistics based on actual cases.”
Samsung also called reports that it uses large amounts of carcinogens in its mobile phone factories fearmongering and said, “Samsung complies with relevant regulations and laws and prioritizes the health of its employees.”