An independent investigation committee tasked with checking the work environment at Samsung Electronics Co. said Wednesday that it has found no clear evidence to link the chips and display lines with the illnesses suffered by some workers, although acknowledging there should be continuous studies.
After carrying out a probe, the team of experts said it found no critically hazardous substances at Samsung's production facilities.
"It is our goal to prevent work-related diseases in the future by releasing how (companies) can improve things," said Professor Lee Cheol-soo of Seoul National University, who heads the committee, highlighting that the announcement does not necessarily exonerate Samsung.
(Yonhap)
The team also said it could not make a clear conclusion on whether working at the tech giant's plants caused leukemia, brain tumors or miscarriages.
The committee was established in June 2016 to investigate the working environments of Samsung's chip and display lines under an agreement with victims and their families who suffered from various diseases after working for the company.
Elaborating on the details, the team said the emissions of potentially dangerous substances at Samsung's facilities in Giheung, Hwaseong, Onyang and Asan were within legal limits. The researchers added it conducted thorough investigations on 54 materials used in wafer production lines but did not find any to be dangerous to humans.
The team said it did find some toxic substances, such as toluene, but the amount was too small to be considered a health threat.
The radiation exposure of workers was also in line with legal limits, with researchers claiming the amount exposed by workers was effectively no different from those encountered by ordinary people.
"We could not make a conclusion on the correlation due to the significance of statistics and differences among researchers," the committee said, claiming it could not clearly find ties between Samsung's workplace and diseases.
The committee said Samsung should still continue to monitor the usage of toxic substances in line with fast-developing production technologies.
The team also said Samsung Electronics should report all toxic materials used at its facilities for workers' right to know.
Samsung Electronics has been protesting against the government's plan to publicly disclose its workplace environment assessment reports, citing the need to maintain business secrets.
Lee highlighted there needs to be a change in the trend where companies refrain from publicly disclosing such safety-related data citing confidential know-how.(Yonhap)
