3 pregnant employees accuse Samsung of workplace accidents in S.Korea, seek compensation

Seoul: A government-affiliated agency in South Korea recognised on Friday the risks of unsafe work environment on a foetus after three employees who worked at Samsung Electronics Co. during their pregnancy claimed their children's congenital diseases should be covered by workplace accident compensation.

The Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service said that following a deliberation process, a committee that oversees the compensation concluded that the cases of three women who worked as operators should be acknowledged as industrial accidents, Yonhap news agency reported.

"The considerable causality between their children's diseases and the work they carried out has been recognised," it added.

The decision comes three years after the women filed for workplace accident compensation in 2021, citing an array of congenital diseases their children were born with, including those in the kidney, throat, and bladder.

It marks the second case in which the institution has recognised the risks of unsafe work environments on the foetus since the revised Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act went into effect last year.

In December, the institution also approved a request for workplace accident compensation by a nurse whose child was born with a congenital brain disease.

South Korea has so far recognised eight cases of children born with congenital diseases due to their mothers' unsafe work environments, including four cases that were recognised by the Supreme Court in 2020 before the revised act went into effect.

Epidemiologic probes for two other cases are underway, the report said.