Originally published on July 25, 2014, at ForceChange.com

Target: Boo-Keun Yoon, CEO of Samsung Group

Goal: Provide Samsung employees in China and Korea with safe work environments and put an end to illegal child labor practices

To keep costs down, Samsung regularly commits worker abuse in its cell phone factories. Exposed to harmful chemicals without the required safety equipment, hundreds of employees have developed serious medical conditions. Children illegally working in the plants are forced to work 11 hours a day, six days a week while earning less than their older counterparts.

Workers often do not receive protective gear, such as masks or gloves, when operating unsafe equipment or coming into contact with toxic chemicals. Samsung does not even provide safety training for their employees in Korea, China, and around the world.

Low wages force employees to work longer hours to the point of exhaustion. Samsung also refuses to pay these employees overtime for their hard labor. Samsung factory workers deserve the respect to be given proper protective equipment and safer working conditions.

Within days of an audit, Samsung hires young teenage boys and girls who end up receiving less pay. The children are forced to do the same work as the adults while being exposed to the same hazardous situations. They often get scheduled during the most difficult shift, from 8:30pm to 8:30am.

By signing the petition below you will help urge the CEO of Samsung Group, Boo-Keun Yoon, to stop practicing worker abuse and child labor in his factories.

PETITION LETTER:

Dear Boo-Keun Yoon,

The price of cutting corners for profit comes at the expense of your employees’ health. Preventing access to safety training and protective equipment is tantamount to labor abuse. Without these people, Samsung would be nothing, yet you continue to humiliate and demoralize your own employees.

Give your workers a safer working environment while ending illegal practices of child labor. Since these children haven’t fully developed their bodies, you are exposing their eyes, lungs, and skin to harmful chemicals. Hundreds of your employees have deteriorating medical conditions because of your desire to turn a massive profit.

As you well know, the world has become more interactive and informed with technology becoming more readily available. If you do not cease your reprehensible acts of worker abuse and child labor, the world will learn of your crimes and boycott your products. Your customers will not tolerate inhuman greed and avarice from a multi-billion dollar corporation that could easily afford to provide safe working conditions for its employees.

Sincerely,

[Your Name Here]

Photo credit: Robert Scoble via Flickr