This undated file image, provided by Yonhap News TV, depicts the trial over whether to recognize the death of a worker at Samsung Electronics Co. as an industrial accident. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, July 15 (Korea Bizwire) – A Samsung Electronics Co. engineer who died from leukemia after working in the company for 14 years was recognized as a victim of a workplace accident, nearly nine years after his death, a civic group said Monday.
Last week, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the bereaved family of the engineer, surnamed Jang, after they filed a suit against the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service to cancel the disapproval of the payment of survivor’s benefits, according to Supporters for the Health and Rights of People in the Semiconductor Industry (SHARPS).
Jang, who joined the company in 2001 as an engineer at the software development group in the Suwon office, was exposed to an extremely low-frequency magnetic field from electric installations during work and died from acute myeloid leukemia in March 2015.
Exposure to extremely low-frequency magnetic fields is known to increase the incidence rate of leukemia, brain tumors and breast cancer.
The state-run agency under the Ministry of Employment and Labor denied the harmfulness of the extremely low-frequency magnetic field, but the ruling confirmed that it can act as a cancer-causing factor, the civic group said.
“We are glad the death could be recognized as an industrial accident, but it is hard to accept that it has to take such a long time,” the bereaved family said in a statement.
(Yonhap)
