In South Korea, a Protester’s Lone Fight Against Samsung

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/world/asia/samsung-tower-protest.html

by adrian_mrd • 6 years ago

67 38 6 years ago

neonate• 6 years ago

maallooc5• 6 years ago

Mr. Kim said Samsung fired him in 1995 for doing what many others, before and since, have tried to do: organize an independent labor union.

No he was not. He was fired because he tried to sexually assult a women co-worker.

The woman said in a notarized statement that Mr. Kim had not assaulted her, and he sued Samsung, demanding his job back.

Although he 'claims' that he has a notarized paper that confirms he did not do it he never submitted it to the court and failed to show it to the public.

In 1992, his wife was sexually assaulted, and an unsubstantiated newspaper report speculated that the attacker had a connection to Samsung.

The only proof of the incident was the newspaper article, which was an allegation by his wife of attempted sexual assult. No other proof exists.

rajlego2• 6 years ago

Do you have proof of your claims?

maallooc5• 6 years ago

I have but they are all Korean.

barry-cotter• 6 years ago

I have no dog in this fight but it hardly seems beyond the bounds of possibility that Samsung would just lie and slander a former employee who was an annoyance. What’s the worst that could happen? He somehow finds rock solid proof they did so and gets $10m in damages? The chances of anyone supporting him even if everything he said was true is zero. Pissing off one of Korea’s largest companies isn’t something people with sense do whether they work there or not.

hatsunearu2• 6 years ago

Can you post the sources? As it stands you're saying one woman's sexual assault allegations are false and those of another are valid, even though both cases (as presented) are not much different from each other.

totorovirus5• 6 years ago

I have a friend who didn't know how to code in C++ (although he graudated from CS major) but still got into samsung as a developer, got trained how to write code there. It's a typical conglomerate thing in south korea though. The main strategy here is to assetize(they call them selves as samsung family member) their in-house trained developer. He's going to spend rest of his life there as a samsung developer, enjoying social prestige as a 'samsung employee'.

I recently heard they are now considering to move their code base from svn to git, and write some test code to stabilize the firmware that goes into the ssd products.

I don't think I can explain in short how a mediocre developer who never actually coded something into reality got a degree, and got a job in allegedly the biggest company in south korea... All I can say it is a complex korean thing that requires some cultural understanding of our society.

logicchains• 6 years ago

I recently heard they are now considering to move their code base from svn to git, and write some test code to stabilize the firmware that goes into the ssd products.
I don't think I can explain in short how a mediocre developer who never actually coded something into reality got a degree, and got a job in allegedly the biggest company in south korea... All I can say it is a complex korean thing that requires some cultural understanding of our society.

Are you sure it's a Korean thing, and not just a hardware-company thing? Even in the west, hardware companies are notorious for having terrible software development practices / UX. Perhaps the sole exception is Apple, and this has allowed them to dominate (compare iOS to the crapware OEMs like Samsung bundle with phones).

totorovirus5• 6 years ago

Do apple hire CS majors who never did a project in any language? Probably not..

strategarius2• 6 years ago

It's Korean (probably also Japanese) thing. My friend attended their interview, said there were little to no technical questions, but he has been asked to create "self-presentation". He was hired. Samsung produces tons of software quite far from near-hardware level, for example Java and C++ applications for their own version of Android.

coconut_crab• 6 years ago

I work for a Japanese companies, and more than half of the developers here have non-IT backgrounds like marketing, sales, design etc... All of them started with scala from zero and 2~3 years later they start talking about monad, final tagless or writing concurrency helper libraries... Our brain is quite malleable so having non IT background doesn't prevent you to be a good developer.

watwut3• 6 years ago

So, basically the company hired complete junior, was willing to train him and somehow that is bad thing as big companies should hire only already learned people?

webkike• 6 years ago

I’m also extremely confused by the parent comment... why was him not knowing C++ relevant? He had a CS degree so he’s surely at least somewhat qualified.

reinkaos• 6 years ago

What I read between the lines here is that the company hired someone with no experience and gave them more responsibility than they should have at the beginning of their careers.

totorovirus5• 6 years ago

They don't ask technical questions or anything related to CS...

ChrisRR• 6 years ago

If he didn't know how to write C++ but has a CS degree then presumably he knows another language like java. Many language features are interchangeable so it sets you up for picking up a new language fairly quickly

rasz• 6 years ago

This is the exact history of Tetsuya Iida, Sony programmer responsible for PS2 software compatibility layer.

"I had no real electrical engineering skills to speak of whatsoever and I didn’t even know how to boot up Windows 3.1, let alone how to write any programs. Even now, I can’t help but wonder what people at Sony saw in me when they decided to hire me. Luckily, I got the chance to learn how to program computers thanks to a training program that the company ran. "

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22501566 https://medium.com/@freelansations/the-story-of-the-ps2s-bac...

TLDR: this seems to be standard Asian hiring practice.

fomine3• 6 years ago

At least, It's very common in Japan.

PakG12• 6 years ago

I'm Korean ethnicity, but Canadian born, my wife is Korean ethnicity and Korean born. We keep talking about whether or not to live in Korea. Korea has seen more rapid economic advancement than any other country in the world. Yeah, I'm saying it beats out China in that regard. I work in China, and while China's progress has been insane, Korea's at a place where China is not yet. So the debate is live in Korea, Canada, or somewhere else (or could just continue working in China, but difficult to call China home, given our backgrounds).

The #1 reason why I wouldn't prefer Korea is because Samsung and other chaebols have too much of a grip on the country. They don't play fair. They don't give other companies even a chance to disrupt them. It's worse than what Microsoft was like in the 90s because at least Microsoft didn't blatantly bribe and corrupt the highest levels of government. They manipulate the stock market extremely maliciously to take out competitors before they can become disruptive. I attended a lecture from a professor at Seoul National University who was an advisor to the government on how to get them to make the stock market more fair and allow companies to grow and achieve success. It was startling to what extent the stock market got manipulated.

Never mind the idea of starting a company and being able to have a great exit. Even if I was just a normal worker, how would my retirement funds be able to grow in that kind of a stock market, even if my employer matched contributions? I'd be dependent on only my bank account savings for retirement, no chance for reinvestment. Or my retirement funds are all tied into the prospects of my employer's stock? Also scary, zero risk diversification.

I think Korea's long-term growth prospects will be severely limited as long as the chaebols have a stranglehold on the economy. I am hopeful by the fact that they let Hanjin go bankrupt. Apparently, everyone in Hanjin was just completely complacent and waiting for the government to bail them out. When they didn't get bailed out, it was a sign that the new government was willing to make some of the hard decisions necessary to allow for a properly entrepreneurial society to thrive.

maallooc5• 6 years ago

Wow, I'll take this bait.

They manipulate the stock market extremely maliciously to take out competitors before they can become disruptive.
Even if I was just a normal worker, how would my retirement funds be able to grow in that kind of a stock market, even if my employer matched contributions?

You really think Samsung manipulates the market to gain something? And you think you'll lose something from it?

They don't give other companies even a chance to disrupt them.
Never mind the idea of starting a company and being able to have a great exit.

You know that startups in the United States also don't compete with the sectors where big companies' grip are strong, right?

I'd be dependent on only my bank account savings for retirement, no chance for reinvestment.

There are loads of reinvestment options like real estate, foreign stocks and others if you think ((they)) are controlling the national stock market.

Or my retirement funds are all tied into the prospects of my employer's stock? Also scary, zero risk diversification.

Then perhaps don't get a stock option?

I think Korea's long-term growth prospects will be severely limited as long as the chaebols have a stranglehold on the economy.

And yet, when Samsung tries to close their Gwangju plant everyone starts their uprising. Not in my country but please in my back yard?

I am hopeful by the fact that they let Hanjin go bankrupt.

Oh, I'm so politically correct that I am happy with thousands losing their jobs! My views are more important than their lives.

I live in the US after living in Seoul and Newfoundland. I will choose Korea over Canada at any times. Canadian medical system is a shitter, slower and bureaucratic version of Korea. I feared for my life because I was not able to get an emergency surgery because they have shortage of doctors. I had to wait a week where in Korea I've had my surgery in 3:00 in the morning after waiting 20 minutes. Old people in Canada fear for their life and move to Mexico or US. It's a total mess.

Services at restaurants are shitty and more expensive. Groceries are shitty and expensive. Winter too long that people can't live without Xanax. Drug addicts on the street. Gun control. Housing prices. Trump ruining the economy. Unemployment rise and fall with raw material prices.... Yeah, I'd love to live in Canada to feel these.

PakG12• 6 years ago

You really think Samsung manipulates the market to gain something? And you think you'll lose something from it?

Yes. But don't take my word for it. The lecture I attended was given by Woojin Kim, a professor of finance at Seoul National University's Business School. http://cba.snu.ac.kr/en/faculty?memberidx=60582&major=6&mode...

He advises Korea's National Pension Service (NPS) how to become active in improving corporate transparency for share ownership. In his lecture, he explained that currently, what happens is that a variety of holding companies can by and sell companies, but the nature of who owns the holding companies can be obscured.

So imagine a Donkey Kong level four levels high. Various companies can own companies at any level below it. For a simplified explanation, you may have companies A, B, and C each holding 17% of companies D, E, and F. Then together, they hold 51% of each of D, E, and F, and thereby control all voting rights for those companies. Then companies A, D, and E also hold 13% each of companies G, H, I, and J. Likewise, companies C, F, I, and J each hold 9% of companies K, L, M, N, O, and P. And so on. Easy for all these companies to acquire these shares on the stock market.

But the chaebol at the top of the pyramid holds 51% of each of companies A, B, and C. So the chaebol effectively exercises control over companies K, L, M, N, O, and P without even owning shares in those companies, or owning only a minority percentage of shares. However, this control isn't visible to shareholders of companies K, L, M, N, O, and P, so they don't know that there are major fiduciary duty problems with companies K, L, M, N, O, and P. Multiple the 51% chain from the top to the bottom, you have outsized control of the bottom companies without the controllers actually owning 51% of those companies. Shareholders play a rigged game they are destined to lose, and it's rigged way more than other respectable stock markets (let's limit the discussion to respectable stock markets).

These fiduciary duty conflicts lead to problems where, for example, a company with a really good technology is forced to sell their technology to the chaebol for pennies on the dollar and leave the technology company with nothing of value. Classic corporate raiding, except even more dastardly. Now the professor said that although this happens in Korea, in other countries with more transparent stock markets, that would never happen because the minority shareholders could sue the company and stop the transaction from happening. But even if investigations happen and people get put in jail, the professor noted that there's a solution for that too! It is easy to hire a no-name off the street, make him CEO (remember, they have 51% voting rights, they can do whatever they want), and have him take the fall when the shit hits the fan. The no-name agrees to the deal because he'll be well-compensated for some years in jail, whereas his employment prospects weren't great otherwise anyway. It's hilarious.

The professor advises Korea's National Pension Service and advises them on how they can force companies to be more transparent with their ownership structures to ensure that if these 51% chains allow companies to have outsized control of companies, other shareholders are at least aware of what's going on, and there can possibly be the start of a legal framework to prevent this kind of corporate raiding from happening.

When a chaebol pulls this kind of stuff, yes, not only the average shareholder can lose something from it, the National Pension Service can also lose something from it. And the National Pension Service is supposed to be for the people. Corporations serving themselves at the expense of normal people, what else is new? But Korea's chaebols take it to another level.

South Korea is working to fix problems with its stock market, they know that it's an issue: https://www.pionline.com/governance/s-koreas-600-billion-pen...

There's nothing incorrect about the very last quote in the article: "But it is true that South Korea has been lagging far behind the global standard for corporate governance."

You know that startups in the United States also don't compete with the sectors where big companies' grip are strong, right?

No, they disrupt them or force them to up their game. If the incumbents don't up their game, they become like the record companies. And if all goes well, they become major players that can compete with the big boys like Google and Slack competing with Microsoft, Microsoft and Apple competing with IBM, and so on. When was the last time you heard of a Korean startup growing up to compete with the big boys? It happens in the US, it happens in China, heck, it even happens in Canada sometimes. Korea?

There are loads of reinvestment options like real estate, foreign stocks and others if you think ((they)) are controlling the national stock market.
Then perhaps don't get a stock option?

I think you're missing the point. My point is that I don't think there are many great options in Korea when the chaebol tentacles are everywhere, and foreign stock markets are easier to invest in, especially tax-wise, if you are a resident of those countries.

Also, if you think it's more important to prop up an unprofitable company because it employs people, I don't think you understand how much of a drain that would be on the Korean economy. Countries need strong companies led by competent management that can sustain themselves, not corrupt companies led by incompetent management that will cost the taxpayer money. I suppose you think that the US government bailing out the airlines is a great thing when it wouldn't have been necessary if those companies were run well? https://www.businessinsider.com/taxpayers-bailout-us-airline... Or that the US government bails out banks every 10 years, despite bank executives receiving compensation that only top geniuses should deserve? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/20/the-price-of-t... Why is it the taxpayer that should pay the burden for corporate executives that do a bad job? Taking care of the people, that's what unemployment insurance should be for. The taxpayer shouldn't have to take care of the corporations too. Or should the government fund Kodak to continue to be the size it once was at the expense of taxpayers because it employed so many people, even though it can't figure out how to self-sustain itself as the world changes? Should the Canadian government have used taxpayer money to fund Nortel, even though nobody was buying their network switches?

You seem extremely emotional coming to the conclusion that because I think the chaebols having control is a bad thing, it in turn implies that I think Korea sucks as a country. I never said that Korea's worse than other countries regarding various services and attributes. I said that this chaebol thing was the #1 reason why I wouldn't consider Korea. There are many reasons why I would consider Korea, and maybe in the end, they would outweigh this #1 reason why I wouldn't. Do you not weigh pros and cons when you make your decisions?

Korea does many things well. Streets are super clean. Health care is great. It has the best COVID-19 response out of any country in the world. I am saying that the great progress that Korea has made to date is at risk if Korea lets the chaebols compete unfairly. It puts at risk Korea's ability to finance its current way of life in the future.

This thought of mine derives from Joseph Schumpeter's idea of creative destruction and Clayton M. Christensen's idea of the innovator's dilemma. Companies birthing and dying are a natural cycle of life. If chaebols compete fairly, they should be ripe for disruption. But they don't compete fairly. That is a artifact of Korea's economic history of how it was able to raise itself from poverty. Chaebol companies got special treatment and special rights in order to get them to be the economic engines that brought Korea into the modern age. We can be thankful for what they did in the past. But why let them abuse those privileges in the present? Are they more important than the nation? I hope you would not think that they are.

Never mind that OP is about how it treats workers. The chaebols are unfair about that too. The Korean elite are too afraid of losing their place in society, or too greedy, to give other members of society and competing corporations a fair shake.

ashtonkem• 6 years ago

“You’re not actually being hurt by this corruption” has always been the argument of the corrupt themselves. It’s not a convincing argument.

In South Korea, a Protester’s Lone Fight Against Samsung

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