Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking

[abdullahkhalids]

> 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 The 8-inch line, however, is outdated.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]

> 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.

[eru]

The negotiation power of workers largely relies on what their outside options are. If the rest of the economy is booming, they'll have more power, because they can walk away.

If the rest of the economy is doing badly, they can't threaten to walk about (or at least they can't threaten that as easily and credibly).

[Joeri]

But the article mentions the 8 inch production line is always shorthanded on staff. You would think workers on a line that has shortages of employees would have negotiating power. The article also mentions better circumstances on other lines. The workers on strike also say they’re not even really asking for better circumstances, just to not be treated like parts in a machine.

I think this is a typical case of a bad manager at the top of the 8 inch line, and not of some larger theme of automation leading to worker abuse.

[fred_is_fred]

Swap out 12-inch line to something like weaving and you could have posted this in 1770.

[wormlord]

Samsung 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]

wlb?

[stevage]

wlb?

[Alupis]

> "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...

[marcodiego]

I 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.

[moandcompany]

Some aspects of hierarchy-based power dynamics (i.e. bullying and abuse) have been captured into a relatively new, and unique Korean word, "Gapjil" (갑질).

Gapjil (Korean: 갑질) is an expression referring to an arrogant and authoritarian attitude or actions of people in South Korea who have positions of power over others. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gapjil)

Gapjil is typically used to describe the abusive dynamics of one person above another in a hierarchy but has also been extended to describing the power abuse dynamics of large businesses interacting with smaller ones (e.g. small suppliers).

As you mentioned, Korean language and society reflects a "high-context" culture where language itself uses and encodes social hierarchy position through the use of "honorifics," speaking to or addressing to people above by their title/rank or "treatment."

"Over 80% of public perceive 'gapjil' problem as serious: survey" (2021) https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20210113000769

The practice was made illegal in South Korea (2019) under its Labor Standard Act (LSA), but the effectiveness of that law has been scrutinized quite a bit, as many surveyed state it remains highly prevalent in the workplace:

(Law fails to protect Koreans from workplace bullying) https://asiatimes.com/2020/01/south-korea-fails-to-stamp-out...

[alephnerd]

I'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.

[rasz]

> There's even a case where this resulted in an air disaster

Lets not forget Sewol disaster 'recovery efforts' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_A8dq2fA5o https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-sinking-of-the-... where no rescue was even attempted before letting President decide (establishing video feed to command center).

[SiempreViernes]

> “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]

This 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]

I rarely hear positive stories about the work conditions and culture in Korea.

[colordrops]

My 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.

[throwaway2037]

    > 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.

[SoftTalker]

Burns, cuts, mashed fingers, all part of the picture when you work in trades, especially construction.

[lmpdev]

How does one destroy a pinky from welding?

I don’t doubt it, just curious how that occurred?

[eric__cartman]

I had to slightly rewrite the title to get it to fit within the 90 character limit.

[tohuvavohu]

Perhaps rewrite the title to: "Mangled fingers, no time off: Women who make Samsung semiconductors go on strike"

[Kalanos]

To 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]

can't*

[wtcactus]

Why 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]

I'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.

[hbogert]

This is one of the reasons I'm pessimistic that intel will regain the Fab crown. How can you compete with this?

[mathiasgredal]

In 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.

[idunnoman1222]

With samsung?

[m3kw9]

Humans shouldn’t be doing this type of work or most industrial line work, robots can do it easily 24/7

[SoftTalker]

Humans are probably cheaper in these cases.

[wavemode]

Somewhat similarly, I had to do a double take at a billboard I saw recently - "Southwest Pilots Are Ready to Strike"

[rsynnott]

This might be a regional thing; "striking workers" in a standard usage in, at least, British and Irish English.

[robertlagrant]

Sir! The workers are revolting!

[__MatrixMan__]

I was looking at the pictures of their thumbs trying to figure out which thing was being struck against which other thing.

[twen_ty]

Peak HN right here. Top comment is on semantics but not on the original content.

[undersuit]

I would need a definite article on women to consider striking to not be a verb.

[jiveturkey]

I thought so too. I suspected clickbait but this is a paraphrase by the submitter. The original headline is reasonable.

[fuzzfactor]

>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.

[talldayo]

Leave it to HN to rationalize job-related disfigurement.

[mronetwo]

and what's exactly the purpose of that philosophical angle?

[OJFord]

Awareness of this kind of thing often influences consumer preferences, spending.

'Fairtrade' (fair wages for farmers in undeveloped countries), boycotting Primark (child labour), etc.

[mandevil]

Speaking 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.

[mahmoudhossam]

It's a technology company and a major one too, I'd say it's well in scope for HN.

[fortran77]

I completely misunderstood the title, and wondered before I clicked how it could possibly have reached the front page.

[kbelder]

Didn't stop you from clicking...