El Reg reports
A leaked presentation to Samsung executives has provided further insight into the company's damaged internal culture.
The PowerPoint document focuses on strategies to prevent the creation of labor unions at the South Korean company and takes a very aggressive stance, treating employees as enemies, and suggesting "countermeasures", as well as ways to "dominate employees".
It also talks about "punishing" union leaders, isolating "troublesome" employees, and "inducing internal conflicts" as a way of intimidating employees and preventing the creation of unions. The presentation is also dismissive of labor laws and government ministers that have proposed changes to protect employees.
The presentation [PPT] [PDF] is dated 2012, but appears to have been used repeatedly by Samsung executives up until two years ago. It was unearthed by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), which drew a direct line between the approach demonstrated in the presentation and the recent aborted launch of the Galaxy Note 7 due to exploding batteries.
"Inhumane conditions are rife" at the company, the ITUC reports, noting that Samsung employees are overworked, under-paid, and forced to suffer appalling conditions, including "standing for 11 to 12 hours, verbal and physical abuse, severe age and gender discrimination, and lack of worker safety".
It quotes one worker who claimed that during an intense three-month period in the run-up to the release of a Galaxy tablet she slept only two or three hours a night and had to give up breastfeeding her three-month-old baby as a result.
One [slide] lists examples of employee deaths that have been attributed to overwork. One employee, Kim, killed himself and the presentation notes that he had worked 100 hours of overtime each month for nine months. A widow of a manager is quoted as saying he "died from overwork".
Ed Note: Title changed to more accurately reflect content. 0700UTC
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @01:18AM
The title of the article is in no way linked to the content of the article.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @01:41AM
http://www.google.com/search?q=reading.comprehension.course [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @01:41AM
And it's all by this spamming douchebag, phoenix, or the submission bot. We all need to step up, or else SN will shrivel away to death, without even a whimper.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @02:02AM
Um, you forgot to post the reason you think this submission sucks.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday October 25 2016, @08:24AM
forgot to post the reason you think this submission sucks.
We are dealing with an alt-right here, I fear. Reasoning and thinking are beyond his abilities, I am afraid. But he definitely disagrees, most strongly, for some reason he does not consciously recognize or understand. . . Brietbart!!!
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @02:28AM
I wouldn't worry.
Every time idiots like gewg or phoenix666 post their pathetic cries for attention get shredded and shat out like bran.
OK, except for a few morons who believe them, but they're clearly in the minority.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 25 2016, @02:43AM
Do step up.
I submit stories over morning coffee. Takes about 2-3 mins per. I have RSS feeds I scan for stories. When there are a lot I think the SN community will like discussing, I submit them all at once so the editors can bank them against the pipeline going dry. If others submit enough, you don't see many of my submissions. I prefer those times because it's nice to see something on the main page I haven't already seen. When the pipeline dries up, my submissions are there to keep things rolling. These last couple I submitted about a week ago.
There's an FAQ with story submission guidelines [soylentnews.org]. It can help you if you haven't submitted before. I would add a couple tips that aren't in those guidelines. First, don't spend hours preparing a submission. If you did and it was turned down, you would probably be annoyed and never submit another; if it was accepted and it generated very little discussion, or even negative comments ("You SUCK!!! SN is going to the dogs, I'm leaving and never coming baaaack," etc.) you'll wonder why you wasted your time. On the bright side our kindly editors would probably give you a reason why it was rejected. (Slashdot never did, and they never accepted any of my submissions, which is why I quickly learned not to. In their case, they had a paid staff of editors who did it for you. Soylent is all volunteer.) So an investment of 2-3 minutes, or at least under 5 minutes per submission, is better.
Second, copy & paste representative excerpts from the story you're linking to rather than summarizing in your own words. Few of us are expert enough or have enough time to sit there and fact-check everything in our written summary. Do it once, thinking you've got a solid handle of, say, database architecture, and getting chopped into a million tiny pieces by database architecture pedants will convince you to let the person getting paid to get it wrong (ie. the journalist) take the lashing.
Anyway, those are a couple rules of thumb I use that others might find useful. If not, great. TIMTOWTDI [wikia.com].
I look forward to seeing new submitters filling the pipeline. I'll keep submitting mine, but it would be quite alright to never see another one of them make the editors' cut.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by snufu on Tuesday October 25 2016, @06:35AM
But what if we get all of our news from SN?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 25 2016, @10:13AM
The SN RSS feed [sylnt.us]. Check that and your statement will still be true, only you'll be helping filter that into submissions for the front page.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 25 2016, @11:13AM
Just adding in an addendum in case it might help anyone who's thinking of submitting. These are what I'm going to submit from that RSS feed, and why:
How German nuclear scientists reacted to the news of Hiroshima [lukemuehlhauser.com]
SN has a lot of history buffs. Most geeks have had an interest in WWII at some point.
Earth-sized planets with abundant water statistically likely around red dwarfs [phys.org]
Most Soylentils like planetary exploration. There will probably be a few jokes about Red Dward.
Scientists discover particles similar to Majorana fermions [phys.org]
Most Soylentils don't know much about particle physics. Our community is blessed, however, with a few who do have deep knowledge on the subject and can usually interpret the news in laymen's terms for the rest.
Nearly all Fossil brands now have hybrid smartwatches [arstechnica.com]
Stories like these can be thinly veiled advertisements, but I would submit it because the jury is still out on the subject of smartwatches and the SN community might have insight into whether smartwatches will play out well or turn out to be a dead end.
Swedes ban camera spy-drones for anything but crime fighting [theregister.co.uk]
The SN community has, like many people do, strong feelings about drones.
Big tech-media mergers raise fresh privacy concerns [phys.org]
Tech industry consolidation affects us on many levels, including as consumers and as technologists who might be caught in lay-offs that result.
Judge orders FBI to reveal whether White House launched 'Tor pedo' torpedo exploits [theregister.co.uk]
Digital liberty is something SN is always eager to discuss.
Iceland's Pirate Party tops polls ahead of national elections [theregister.co.uk]
This one is ostensibly about politics, but of possible interest to SN because the Pirate Parties in Europe were formed by geeks like us who got pissed off and did something about it.
New Tech Could Let Devices Function for Years Without a Battery [futurism.com]
Battery life is of concern to all technology users. SN has a number of electrical engineers who are able to give insight into the topic.
So there's 9 stories I'd submit. At 2-3 minutes per submission, that's my morning cup of coffee plus news reading.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday October 25 2016, @09:41PM
That's what I do because I'm lazy.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday October 25 2016, @09:42PM
Dont be feedin dem trolls.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 26 2016, @03:34AM
Yeah I figure it was trollin', but it wasn't wrong either. SN could use more submitters. I'm happy to be able to help the community by submitting a lot, but more submitters is better.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @02:43AM
And it's all by this spamming douchebag, phoenix, or the submission bot. We all need to step up and stop whining like a little bitch, or else SN will shrivel away to death, without even a whimper.
There. FTFY.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @01:42AM
So, Samsung (like pretty much everyone else) tries to poison the union well (for reasons both ostensibly good and bad).
... so their phones explode.
What?
Verizon pisses off unions and workers - oh noes! Teh Verizophones gonna assplode!
AT&T pisses off unions and workers - duck and cover! Phones incoming!
Here's a more plausible interpretation:
Samsung, like most large companies, has a corporate culture that, depending on where you are, varies between great and horrible. Like most large companies, there's a huge problem of the left and right hands not merely not knowing what each other are up to, but frequently not being clear on each other's existence. Samsung, like most large companies, occasionally has monumental screwups.
If there's anything (and I don't even believe this, but what the hell let's roll with it) to be criticised here, it's korean business law, and the general confucian cultural legacy that has ugly repercussions as measured in overwork, suicide rates and social stratification.
If the cause and effect were really as suggested by the story, we'd expect rampant decay, incompetence, malfeasance and product failure. But we don't see that. We see one, fairly well-defined problem.
And a few nitwits with an agenda (hey, gewg!)
(Score: 2) by fishybell on Tuesday October 25 2016, @02:02AM
What direct line? What indirect line?
Workers on the factory floor (essentially everyone described above being inhumanely treated) don't have jack to do with the phone exploding.
iPhones are made partially by slave labor, and they don't explode.
It's all about the design. What other Samsung phone explodes? Obviously they have a problem, but the problem doesn't seam to be linkable to employee abuse.
(Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Tuesday October 25 2016, @02:31AM
The presentation [PPT] [PDF] is dated 2012, but appears to have been used repeatedly by Samsung executives up until two years ago. It was unearthed by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), which drew a direct line between the approach demonstrated in the presentation and the recent aborted launch of the Galaxy Note 7 due to exploding batteries.
My reading of it indicates that;
They stopped using this approach 2 years ago, which coincides roughly when they would have been laying out the plans for the GN7.
Therefore, the GN7 started exploding because they stopped abusing their employees.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @03:21AM
My reading of it indicates that[:]
They stopped using this approach 2 years ago
I took away a different reading:
All their management types have previously consumed the presentation multiple times and are now fully aware of all of the recommended ways to abuse workers and have been for some time.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Funny) by krishnoid on Tuesday October 25 2016, @03:48AM
Therefore, the GN7 started exploding because they stopped abusing their employees.
Not quite. The culture never changed -- it's just that their R&D group found a way (fairly impressively) to refine and channel the employees' frustration into their battery technology.
It worked well until the overwhelming depravity strained the batteries' structure until their containment fractured. At that point the batteries became despondent and pretty much just started committing suicide In the process, trying to take anyone in the vicinity with them using their (primarily combustible) available resources.
(Score: 1) by snmygos on Tuesday October 25 2016, @05:58AM
Do you have read the article? Workers are deprived of sleep, of course, the quality of their work suffers!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @05:48PM
The problem does not appear to have been the quality of the work as such.
The problem appears to have been the battery sources, or more particularly that they cheaped out on those, with the result that a small proportion, but large enough to make headlines, have catastrophic failures.
Next time (I'm guessing here) they'll give up on some profit, and insist on massive penalty clauses for quality failures from battery suppliers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @02:01AM
Based only on the summary, this sounds like the union bashing that Henry Ford engaged in before WWII. He hired goons to intimidate the union organizers and a variety of other unsavory tactics.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday October 25 2016, @04:21AM
Are you trying to say that's what caused the exploding Model T problem?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @08:21AM
They do not call it the Ford "Exploder" for nothing! Not to mention the S-Cape and the Extradition. Or was I thinking Dodge, or Bronco? Or Pinto, a cheaper Mustang, which is actually a valley in Tibet where the CIA funded Buddhists to fight the Godless Atheist Chi-coms? I forget, and so should you.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @02:22AM
I'd like to buy American, but I can't, because American corporate slavers implicitly condone overseas yellow slave labor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @09:11AM
And American quality is trash. Local slaves have no work ethic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @08:06PM
Exactly! The yellow man loves his work-till-you-drop peon culture! Lazy Americans demand things like safety, sane working hours, employee benefits and worst of all, a decent wage. Disgusting. Thank god for the yellow man. He'll work himself to the bone and be proud of it! He will show his fellow yellow that he too is a hard worker so they can both pat each other on the back on their way to an early grave. He doesn't need nor desire these silly lazy persons luxuries. Yellow culture FTW!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @03:16AM
I guess there are some haters with a hard on looking for somewhere to vent. The idea that corporate culture made the Samsung phones explode is pretty thin, but it is still plausible. Maybe an engineer got fed up with a shitty workplace... Still thin, but given some of the tripe that floats through here I'm surprised by the vitriol over the title.
By hey, always nice to know the trolls are under the bridge; a certain comfort in the world being stable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @12:46PM
Or maybe non-exploding phones requires the folks assembling them to care and provide attention to detail.
This is hard to come by consistently unless your workers feel they are your partners.
Kind of a repeat of Detroit versus Japan for cars a few decades ago.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday October 25 2016, @06:57PM
The problem is that if you make it difficult to question management decisions, management will not get the information needed to make the right decisions. I would bet considerable that several of the Samsung engineers knew that there was a danger of this problem, but that either they didn't dare say so or were quashed.
I'm not saying that the fact that the company is inhumane and treacherous is irrelevant, I'm saying that top-down domination requires that the decisions made be the top always be sufficiently correct.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by snufu on Tuesday October 25 2016, @06:33AM
Japanese workforce, 1970: "We are tired of being poor. We can make a better product for less than the Americans can. They are rich and lazy."
Japanese workforce, 2000: "Screw this. I'm tired of slaving away for a company. Life is too short. You want me to work, treat me fairly and pay a fair wage."
South Korean workforce, 2000: "We are tired of being poor. We can make a better product for less than the Japanese. They are rich and lazy."
South Korean workforce, 2016: "Screw this. I'm tired of slaving away for a company. Life is too short. You want me to work, treat me fairly and pay a fair wage."
Repeat for China, Mexico, etc, until we run out of exploitable desperate people in poor nations.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @07:26AM
I feel bad for you if you actually think people will be producing anything by hand in the near future, automation replaces these jobs every day.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday October 25 2016, @08:08PM
At the rate we're going it'll come back full loop.
(Made in America)
(Score: 5, Informative) by FatPhil on Tuesday October 25 2016, @09:24AM
Until I saw Samsung from the inside, and handed in my resignation 9 weeks later.
I genuinely can't believe they actually make any working products they're so disfuntional. Everything's so controlling. (E.g. they force Linux kernel developers to use Windows machines, including using a dysfunctional internally-written mail system (IE6.0 + Active-X) to send auto-mangled patches to LKML - that's just not going to work.) And they treat their lowly Korean workers like shit. And being good Koreans, they won't complain, as that brings shame on your superiors, which they are afraid to do at a deep-seated cultural level. (Being ingrained in Finnish culture - when you see something wrong, you bring it up, nobody keeps quiet just to be polite - I didn't fit in at all.)
(The Finnish R&D manager was demoted within weeks of me resigning, I still wonder if that was because him losing a staff member so soon had brought shame on the company.)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 25 2016, @02:01PM
Wow, FatPhil, I am glad you posted that. I was once interviewed to head up IT at some division of Samsung's. They turned me down because I don't speak enough Korean; I only speak enough to drink soju with my father-in-law. For years I've kicked myself for not having put more time into learning that language, for having missed out on the posh life in Korea I and my family might have had, a car with a driver, a palatial home, endless soju and Korean BBQ, all the perqs.
You freed me of all that. Now I know we dodged a bullet.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @09:39PM
You forgot to mention Korean pussy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @05:11PM
Page (of the pdf), gaffe
15, mind control of our employees
19, dominate employees in ordinary ways
21, no-union policy
43, employee "drinking capacity" monitored
etc ad nauseam
What an ugly document, the mangled English, the always funky and everchanging layout, the overlapping and partially invisible text (white text on white background), the frequent typos and of course the sickening content itself. Looks like it was dictated by Mussolini and composed by a toddler.
Talk about class warfare. Makes me proud not to own a single Samshit product.