
In South Korea, a Protester’s Lone Fight Against Samsung - adrian_mrd
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/world/asia/samsung-tower-protest.html
======
maallooc
> 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.

~~~
rajlego
Do you have proof of your claims?

~~~
maallooc
I have but they are all Korean.

~~~
tareqak
Please send them to the New York Times.

~~~
tareqak
I can’t edit this anymore, but I should have said to post them here, and to
send them to the New York Times. My mistake.

------
totorovirus
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.

~~~
watwut
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?

~~~
reinkaos
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.

~~~
searchableguy
I feel like this is somehow related to parasite.

~~~
watwut
None of the characters was incapable. All of them were good at what they were
hired to - driver, housekeeper, tutor, art tutor. They were also hardworking
at their jobs. The rich dude was also good in his job (and caring to his
family) and worst you can say about rich mom is that she was naive.

I dont think you understood the movie.

------
PakG1
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.

~~~
maallooc
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.

~~~
PakG1
_> 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...](http://cba.snu.ac.kr/en/faculty?memberidx=60582&major=6&mode=view&part=career)

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...](https://www.pionline.com/governance/s-koreas-600-billion-pension-fund-
be-more-active-shareholder)

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...](https://www.businessinsider.com/taxpayers-bailout-us-airline-
industry-2020-3) 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...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/20/the-price-of-the-
coronavirus-pandemic) 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.

------
neonate
[https://archive.md/ZkJiy](https://archive.md/ZkJiy)

