Noam Chomsky Urges Samsung to Fund Leukemia Foundation

http://www.koreaittimes.com/story/53232/noam-chomsky-urges-samsung-fund-...

Samsung Electronics said last month that it would pay compensation to leukemia victims and implement measures to prevent leukemia recurrence instead of funding an independent non-profit foundation, the primary recommendation made by a mediation committee, which was formed to arbitrate between Samsung Electronics and its former workers suffering from diseases after working at its display and semiconductor facilities. Such a move has triggered a backlash from international activists and campaign groups. Thus, they are now gathering signatures to reprimand Samsung Electronics.

In particular, as world-renowned scholars are calling on Samsung Electronics to accept the mediation committee’s key recommendation, the chipmaker’s cancer scandal is likely to be thrown into the international spotlight.

On August 14, Ted Smith, the founder of the International Campaign for Responsible Technology (ICRT), disclosed “An Open Letter Calling on Samsung to Accept the Recommendations of the Mediation Committee” on http://bit.ly/1MsZiVW.

“We endorse this Open Letter and call on Samsung to accept its corporate social responsibility by accepting the Mediation Committee’s recommendation to establish and fund the independent body to implement the decision. Add your name to this Open Letter by clicking here,” the Letter said. It also detailed the background of the chipmaker’s cancer scandal, introducing a leukemia victim’s story.

The Open Letter won support from Noam Chomsky (professor of linguistics emeritus at MIT and “The conscience of the American people”) and Charles Levenstein (editor of New Solutions (an international journal of occupational and environmental health policy)).

The head of the Asian Network for the Rights of Occupational Accident Victims (ANROAV) and international industrial unions also add their names to the Open Letter.

The mediation committee said on August 25 that all parties will attend an undisclosed joint meeting, slated for October 7, to coordinate their positions on each recommendation.

‘Their opinions and final positions on our three recommendations will be clarified at the meeting. We will focus especially on the implementation of preventative measures against the recurrence of the disease because the two sides find it hard to narrow their differences on it,” the committee said.