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Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- eric__cartman 2y agoI had to slightly rewrite the title to get it to fit within the 90 character limit.
- tohuvavohu 2y agoPerhaps rewrite the title to: "Mangled fingers, no time off: Women who make Samsung semiconductors go on strike"
- OJFord 2y agoIt has been edited since the submitted title GP was talking about, which was something like your suggestion; possibly by mod team to desensationalise (I don't know).
- amelius 2y ago[flagged]
- ericmcer 2y ago[flagged]
- mahmoudhossam 2y agoIt's a technology company and a major one too, I'd say it's well in scope for HN.
- jajko 2y agoIt also concerns humans, of which we are all part of. Some have more empathy to suffering of fellow humans than others, that has always been the case. For most part, HN leans into more humanitarian part of the scale. OP will find it hard to find sympathy here, or almost anywhere else apart from most primitive and easily manipulated corners of human society for that matter.
- immibis 2y agoMost human-related topics are not allowed to be discussed on HN. It needs to have a technology or investment angle to be allowed.
- OJFord 2y agoAwareness of this kind of thing often influences consumer preferences, spending. 'Fairtrade' (fair wages for farmers in undeveloped countries), boycotting Primark (child labour), etc.
- mandevil 2y agoSpeaking for myself, I don't have any real solutions, but I think it is an important part of our humanity to at least occasionally contemplate all the suffering that our society is built upon, because each of us has to have a line at which we become the ones who walk away from/fight for a better Omleas.
- abdullahkhalids 2y ago> Samsung’s 12-inch line utilizes an overhead hoist transport (OHT) system, an automated transport network that operates along tracks installed on the ceiling, to move bundles of 25 wafers called “lots.” On the 8-inch line, however, this transportation is done manually. There is much more market demand for 12-inch wafers, so Samsung has modernized and automated many processes. The 8-inch line, however, is outdated. While abuse of assembly line workers has always happened, as factories become increasingly automated, 1. Some workers lose their jobs to automation. 2. The remaining ones have a weaker negotiation power, as their jobs are on the way out anyway. So companies have even more incentive to abuse them.
- ryandrake 2y ago> 1. Some workers lose their jobs to automation. > 2. The remaining ones have a weaker negotiation power, as their jobs are on the way out anyway. So companies have even more incentive to abuse them. I wonder what the eventual end game is, when you let everything play out to its logical conclusion. Eventually, business owners will no longer need people at all. They'll own a magical fully-automated factory that maintains and repairs itself, and a magical AI box that makes optimal business decisions, and then just sit there owning these magical things and harvesting money every quarter. Humanity consists of the few who own all the boxes, living in opulent luxury, and the many who don't and barely subsist enough to buy the products.
- Blackthorn 2y agoHistorically, violence has been at least somewhat successful as a disincentive for this. Hasn't always fixed the immediate problem but the threat of it, and eventual implementation, kept too much of a gap from happening.
- kybernetikos 2y agoI doubt it'll work this time though though, since we are beginning to make big strides in automating violence too. The people who own the boxes will own the murderbots too.
- colordrops 2y agoMy brother had back surgery in Scottsdale, and his roommate was getting surgery to repair his pinky, which was destroyed in a welding incident in the Samsung plant being built in the area. Made me wonder about the safety of the workers there.
- SoftTalker 2y agoBurns, cuts, mashed fingers, all part of the picture when you work in trades, especially construction.
- throwaway2037 2y ago> which was destroyed in a welding incident in the Samsung plant being built in the area I am confused. How is this related to the story? Is Samsung the general contractor to build the fab? I doubt it.
- lmpdev 2y agoHow does one destroy a pinky from welding? I don’t doubt it, just curious how that occurred?
- colordrops 2y agoA large pipe that was being welded wasn't secure and fell on his hand.
- WentFullRetard 2y ago[dead]
- marcodiego 2y agoI worked for a giant Korean company (offshore, third party outsource). Their view of workers right is very different from "the west". It was said, among my colleagues at the time, that in our country their main headquarters had a law office exclusively to handle abuse cases quickly. I heard stories of Korean lifting their voices and a case where the chair of a programmer was kicked by a Korean manager because he let a bug pass. AFAIK, this is actually part of their culture. They are very strict about hierarchy and it is seen as a kind of honor that is ingrained even in their language. There's even a case where this resulted in an air disaster. I really hope that the current trend of culture interchange between Korea an "the west" may influence both societies for the better.
- alephnerd 2y agoI'd be pessimistic about a cultural change - look at what happened to the Doctor's strike. The only option is to become an expat and end up perpetuating the same traumas, as Pinoy, Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Indonesian, etc employees of Korean companies in their countries can attest to. Korean work culture is itself a reflection of Japanese work culture back when SK was Japan's version of Mexico before the 2010s.
- makapuf 2y agoCan you tell us what happened to the Doctors strike ?
- alephnerd 2y agoWhen Korean Legislative Elections were around the corner in early 2024, the incumbent govenenent announced an increase in the number of seats at medical programs in SK as a populist Hail Mary. Yet they did NOT increase the number of resident positions and left reimbursement rates at the same level as almost a decade ago. Also, the average doctor in SK works 100 hours a week instead of 60 like in the US. This meant that both junior and senior doctors ended up having to work more (they'd need to increase the number of medical students per training doctor post-degree) while still earning their existing salary and needing to pay off college loans (which in Korea are state school level despite incomes being a fraction of the US). Instead of negotiating with doctors, the government decided to instead revoke striking doctor's medical licenses. There is now a significant brain drain as Korean doctors look to immigrate to Japan or the US. And this is how a strike was resolved against white collar workers. Blue collar unskilled workers have even less leverage, because you can always import a "Trainee" from Vietnam, Phillipines, Indonesia, Nepal, etc for a pittance.
- SiempreViernes 2y ago> “When someone is exempt from overtime due to a pregnancy, they don’t send anyone in their place, which means those of us left on the line just have to do more work,” said Worker A. > “Technically, we get an hour for lunch, but the machinery never stops operating, so someone has to fill that spot at all times,” Worker A added. Samsung being the successful company that it is, I can't imagine they don't know that they don't understanding that taking people out of a work team requires putting in a replacement, so I'll take "Malicious compliance with work safety" for 500 Alex.
- alephnerd 2y agoThis is the hidden reality of how consumer electronics assembly work. Doesn't matter if it's South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, China, Philippines, India, Indonesia, etc - these are common work conditions, and it's usually the same managers in all those countries. If native SKeans, TWese, JPese don't want to do these jobs the employers just bring "Interns" from Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, etc and pay them $7,000 a year - which beats earning $2,000 a year either underemployed or doing the same job in those countries. It's horrid, but that's the reality of the gizmos you and everyone else likes using.
- vondur 2y agoI rarely hear positive stories about the work conditions and culture in Korea.
- Kalanos 2y agoTo the employer: rotate them into different roles to prevent this kind of stress on the body/mind. To the employee: find a new job if you can get the above
- Kalanos 2y agocan't*
- wormlord 2y agoSamsung is the only job interview I have walked out of. I was told "you'll basically have zero wlb for the first 2-3 years while we are getting this fab off the ground". I immediately said I was withdrawing my candidacy. I can't imagine what the floor workers jobs are like if that's how demanding the SWE side is. It's especially soul-crushing when you think what the next Xnm process translates to in the real-world. Incrementally better performance for encoding cat videos or whatever. No thanks.
- bluedino 2y agowlb?
- Alupis 2y ago> "you'll basically have zero wlb for the first 2-3 years while we are getting this fab off the ground" This doesn't sound like you were interviewing for a typical job with Samsung then. Getting a fab off the ground seems to imply it's a newly constructed, or under construction fab. You were interviewing to be part of the crew that builds and sets up a new fab. There's a reason salaries for this type of work as so large...
- wormlord 2y agoThat's fair enough. The salary was not high though lol.
- fortran77 2y agoI completely misunderstood the title, and wondered before I clicked how it could possibly have reached the front page.
- m3kw9 2y agoHumans shouldn’t be doing this type of work or most industrial line work, robots can do it easily 24/7
- SoftTalker 2y agoHumans are probably cheaper in these cases.
- hbogert 2y agoThis is one of the reasons I'm pessimistic that intel will regain the Fab crown. How can you compete with this?
- idunnoman1222 2y agoWith samsung?
- mathiasgredal 2y agoIn a society where the abuse of human labour was factored into the cost of the product, the 8-inch fab line would have been shut down, since the cost of the 8-inch wafers would now be prohibitive and not be competitive with the wafers from the 12-inch line. This in-turn would mean that customers would have to switch over to the 12-inch wafers. We are not supposed to compete on who can abuse their workers the most to improve efficiency and to cut costs. Thankfully, knowledge work does not seem to scale the same way as manual labour, meaning that more abuse of the workers does not mean more output over the long-term.
- fuzzfactor 2y ago>Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking I would say they're quite photogenic myself ;) One of the original advantages of semiconductors over vacuum tubes is that they were built to last. Tubes were expected to eventually wear out and be replaced sooner or later, sometimes on a regular basis. So they came in sockets and many were very easily user-replaceable. Other than that, the equipment was usually built to last for decades. It would have been the stupidest thing in the world to get a new radio every 5 or 10 years when all it needed was a new tube or two. And once you had a radio that was satisfying, most people never wanted to buy another radio again. They most often went forward focused on additional types of long-term technology acquisitions, like TV sets and an automobiles with automatic transmission. Semiconductors made almost all tube equipment obsolete as fast as the expanding variety of devices could be developed, so silicon booms are nothing new. Corresponding bust cycles must also have been endured by semiconductor companies who have prospered over the decades. The demand for semiconductors is real strong again, especially the more complex and innovative developments. But as time goes by, the demand for the semiconductors needed to produce products having long-term value is not the demand causing the complaints about overwork. It's the extreme demand for disposable semiconductors, and the manufactured-for-landfill products that incorporate them, which has been gradually putting more pressure on fabrication workers in the same production facilities where it didn't used to be this bad.
- fuzzfactor 2y ago[flagged]
- knighthack 2y ago[flagged]
- locusofself 2y ago[flagged]
- wavemode 2y agoSomewhat similarly, I had to do a double take at a billboard I saw recently - "Southwest Pilots Are Ready to Strike"
- m463 2y agoAfter the mh370 murder-suicide theories...
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 2y agoOr the not-theory involving Germanwings 9525
- rexpop 2y ago[flagged]
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- rexpop 2y ago[flagged]
- madaxe_again 2y ago[flagged]
- wtcactus 2y agoWhy only the women? Aren’t men working in the same conditions? I’ve read the article, but it doesn’t explain why the disparity between sexes.
- Nasrudith 2y agoI've heard accounts of that type of sexism before in Japan. From what I recall hearing many programming shops are all female because the market as a whole is sexist enough that they can get away with paying women lower wages. I have neither cite-able sources nor first hand experience admittedly so feel free to take it with a grain of salt.
- kbelder 2y agoMy son was in Japan a few years back, and said that there was a 'help wanted' publication for the city he was in. It was released in two volumes, one for men, one for women. I seem to remember he said they were blue and pink, but that might be something my mind added after the fact.