Samsung Chair Imprisoned and 24 Others Found Guilty In Union-Busting Case (arstechnica.com) 40
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Samsung Chairman Lee Sang-hoon yesterday was sentenced to 18 months in prison, following a South Korean court ruling that he violated labor laws with union-busting activities. Lee "was immediately arrested in court to be sent to jail," the Financial Times reported.
Lee's violations came during his time as Samsung chief financial officer between 2012 and 2017; he has been chairman of the board since March 2018. Samsung VP Kang Kyung-hoon also received an 18-month prison sentence for his involvement, the Financial Times wrote. The sentences were handed down by the Seoul Central District Court. In all, about 25 current and former Samsung executives were found guilty on similar charges of violating labor laws. "The case largely focused on efforts by Samsung officials, including Mr. Lee, to dismantle the labor union at the company's customer-service unit," The Wall Street Journal wrote. "The court convicted Samsung officials on multiple charges, including gathering personal information on some union members, such as their marital status, personal finances, and mental-health histories." Samsung said that the company's "understanding and view towards labor unions in the past fell short of society's expectations."
As Samsung board chairman, Lee Sang-hoon "is responsible for convening quarterly board meetings and reviewing the company's financial statements before they are sent to shareholders for a vote, among other responsibilities," the Journal wrote.
Lee's violations came during his time as Samsung chief financial officer between 2012 and 2017; he has been chairman of the board since March 2018. Samsung VP Kang Kyung-hoon also received an 18-month prison sentence for his involvement, the Financial Times wrote. The sentences were handed down by the Seoul Central District Court. In all, about 25 current and former Samsung executives were found guilty on similar charges of violating labor laws. "The case largely focused on efforts by Samsung officials, including Mr. Lee, to dismantle the labor union at the company's customer-service unit," The Wall Street Journal wrote. "The court convicted Samsung officials on multiple charges, including gathering personal information on some union members, such as their marital status, personal finances, and mental-health histories." Samsung said that the company's "understanding and view towards labor unions in the past fell short of society's expectations."
As Samsung board chairman, Lee Sang-hoon "is responsible for convening quarterly board meetings and reviewing the company's financial statements before they are sent to shareholders for a vote, among other responsibilities," the Journal wrote.
No Chains bite back (Score:2)
Just a friendly reminder that in America (Score:2)
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I know you're trolling, but even in theory, in the US the people who are above the law are the Employers of Illegal aliens. They call ICE on their own workers if undocumented employees complain about conditions or pay. Send employers to prison for a couple of years, confiscate a few massive farms and factories, and the illegal hiring practices might change.
Targeting individuals who are offered illegal jobs will have little impact except ironically to keep wages lower (and illegal hiring more profitable).
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I'm not so sure, collecting and distributing information on anyone working for you without their permission is a violation of various laws, mental health information is protected under HIPAA but even if those laws don't exist, accusing someone of some heinous crime or personal shortfall could fall under libel.
If anyone it would be the labor union leaders that have historically done these things in the US, unions are literally a step away from organized crime and often do engage in organized criminal behavio
Imagine Larry Page being arrested (Score:5, Interesting)
in the US for Google's union busting efforts. For all the decrying of sending good American manufacturing jobs offshore to places with no labor rights seems like Asian countries protect labor more than California
Re:Imagine Larry Page being arrested (Score:4, Interesting)
Most Asian countries are also socialist-communist hellholes. Samsung and Korean government disputes have a long history, basically whenever the government of Korea doesn't like who's in charge or Samsung doesn't do what they want, or the Korean government changes (eg. their president got impeached in 2017, leading to the arrest shortly after of the then-CEO of Samsung), their leadership gets investigated, forced out or arrested on some charge.
The same things happen in China, if you don't play ball with the communist party, you basically get replaced or the government simply takes your company. I'm not sure you want that kind of government threat.
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His absurdist public defenses somewhat fly in the face of the conspiracy theories.
"He's actually innocent" would be a completely different complaint than, "well, he does this all the time but they only arrest him when they're also mad at him." It may indeed tarnish the prosecutors, but still not be exculpatory in any way.
"They should have arrested me sooner" doesn't amount to a good argument for release.
Re: Imagine Larry Page being arrested (Score:2)
You are comparing different cultures here. In most cultures accepting bribes, panhandling or aggressively dealing with opponents is not culturally seen as a bad thing.
The fact that all these large companies get someone charged all the time means that they are just using the punishment of inherent cultural behavior at the opportune time and the people know about it.
There was one executive (I think Huawei or Alibaba or Foxconn) interviewed a few years ago that basically said: yes, I know the risk is I'll get
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In most cultures accepting bribes, panhandling or aggressively dealing with opponents is not culturally seen as a bad thing.
BS. If bribery and crime was cultural, it would be legalized. if anything, it indicates an extent of infiltration of government structures by organized crime.. which also inversely correlates with Human Development Index a specific region.
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In the US bribery is legalized. Even the Supreme court has ruled Corporations can give as much money as they want to politicians.
We hear a lot of scandals about bribery and influence peddling from Aisan countries because these countries are still under the illusion politics is for the public good and get outraged when someone buys influence.
Culturally Americans accept that politics is bought and sold and dont get outraged by it. its part of the cultural fabric. Starts with PTAs and School Boards and goes al
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"Supreme court has ruled Corporations can give as much money as they want to politicians."
So can you and I, the same ways. We differ only in degree.
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Yeah but if Samsung tried to create an NGO and run political ads in South Korean elections their entire board would be in Jail. See no bribery scandals in the US.
If everything is legal noone breaks the law.
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In the US bribery is legalized. Even the Supreme court has ruled Corporations can give as much money as they want to politicians.
Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!
Sorry Ivan, you're full of shit and don't know the difference between a campaign contribution and a bribe. Probably because you don't have elections.
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RoK is not socialist or communist by any definition. They also have a pretty good record of actually going after high-level corruption even if it takes a while. How many Korean heads of state haven't eventually been prosecuted for under-handed dealings?
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I always chuckle when American complain about Asian socialism all the time living in a country with socialized public schools, food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, Workers rights, Unions and frigging Social Security (its even in the name) all of which was won by the socialists of the early 20th century. Want to live in a free market capitalist society? Theres only one with no govt intervention in the free market - Somalia. You are welcome to move to your capitalist utopia of Mogadishu anytime you want.
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And the part about the govt taking your company if you dont play ball? CITGO
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Re: Imagine Larry Page being arrested (Score:1)
With black helicopters and everything!!
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Pichai is CEO. They arrested the Chairman of the board of Samsung so no its Larry Page who is the more appropriate comparison. They are arresting someone no longer running the company.
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It's virtually assumed that firing employees instigating a unionization effort, no matter the reasons given, results in an investigation and sanctions, in the US. Google should already be under investigation for this, whether they and us are informed or not. DOL invariably forces the employer to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the dismissal is not related to organizing activity. And that's so hard when an employee, otherwise satisfactory, somehow becomes either unnecessary or substandard right after they
USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, Ken Lay was found not guilty, and never served any time. Ford chose to deliberately kill people with the Pinto because the lawsuits were cheaper than the fix. That's murder, and should get some people in prison. The CEO, unless the manager who made the call could be identified.
A few more CEOs in prison would convince companies to act a bit more ethically.
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Why can't we have CEOs and chairmen jailed in the US for their criminal behavior?
Because it's a core competency.
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Ford chose to
That's why right there, you have to find an individual who knew the stuff and made the decision if you want to arrest people in this country. That's a good thing.
Knowing that mistakes were made and people died does not in any way imply by itself that a crime was committed.
At one place I worked, somebody made a careless mistake, and somebody else died trying to clean it up. Nobody went to jail, because that isn't the way things work. Nobody intended for anybody to die, and the (wrong) decision that they made
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Nobody intended for anybody to die
They found a Ford memo where they expected people to die. It wasn't a mistake. It was a risk assessment where death was cheaper than saving lives. Though in Schrodinger's memo style, the correct memo was made incorrect by its existence. Had it not existed, it would have been correct. So it was both correct and wrong, until you looked at it. Or did measuring it change the outcome, so it's Heisenberg's memo?
But that doesn't imply that all auto engineers are murderers.
The engineers gave the recommendation to management to make the change. That's why the beancount
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you have to find an individual who knew the stuff and made the decision
Lee Iaccoca, designer of the Pinto and manager of its production. The "mistake" was placement of a bolt which punctured the gas tank in a rear-end collision above the exhaust pipe. It was found during testing before full production had even gotten under way, but by the time the report had climbed the ladder to someone who could do anything about it the assembly line was already built and the first several hundred cars had already been
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you have to find an individual who knew the stuff and made the decision
Lee Iaccoca
I'm just gonna laugh about your image of how engineering happens, instead of considering all the different ways what you said is stupid.
Every single car ever put into large scale production will kill people, and every single one of those cars would kill less people if more money had been spent preventing it. It is absolutely absurd to beg for criminal charges in one case of that happening. Crimes have to be things that are already illegal when the action was taken. You'd have to believe that was some sort o
I didn't know (Score:2)
that Samsung made chairs as well.
I'd bet they would be expensive.
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The bastard deserves to be imprisoned.
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Oh you bet your booty they make chairs! Thrones, even.
https://www.aliexpress.com/ite... [aliexpress.com]
You didn't think it was only the Japanese and French who had fancy thrones with robotic fire hoses, did you?
He should move to Australia (Score:2)
We encourage union busting and criminal behaviour from large corporations.
Is this the same guy? (Score:2)