Challenging the Chip: Labor Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global Electronics Industry

by David Pellow (Editor), David Sonnenfeld (Editor), Ted Smith (Editor)

Overview

From Silicon Valley in California to Silicon Glen in Scotland, from Silicon Island in Taiwan to Silicon Paddy in China, the social, economic, and ecological effects of the international electronics industry are widespread. The production of electronic and computer components contaminates air, land, and water around the globe. As this eye-opening book reveals, the people who suffer the consequences are largely poor, female, immigrant, and minority. Challenging the Chip is the first comprehensive examination of the impacts of electronics manufacturing on workers and local environments across the planet. Contributors to this pioneering volume include many of the world's most articulate, passionate and progressive visionaries, scholars and advocates. Here they not only document the unsustainable and often devastating practices of the global electronics industry but also chronicle creative ways in which activists, government agencies, and others have attempted to reform the industry—through resistance, persuasion, and regulation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781592133314
Publisher:	Temple University Press
Publication date:	08/12/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	371
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Ted Smith is founder and Senior Strategist, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, and is co-founder and Coordinator of the International Campaign for Responsible Technology. David A. Sonnenfeld is Associate Professor in the Department of Community and Rural Sociology at Washington State University. He is co-editor of Ecological Modernisation Around the World: Perspectives and Critical Debates. David N. Pellow is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California,San Diego. He is the author of Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago.

Table of Contents

Foreword:  Technology Happens by Jim Hightower

INTRODUCTION
1.    The Quest for Sustainability and Justice in a High-Tech World
Ted G. Smith, David A. Sonnenfeld, and David N. Pellow

PART I.  GLOBAL ELECTRONICS
Section Introduction
2.    The Changing Map of Global Electronics:  Networks of Mass Production in the New Economy
Boy Lüthje
3.    Occupational Health in the Semiconductor Industry
Joseph LaDou
4.    Double Jeopardy:  Gender and Migration in Electronics Manufacturing   
Anibel Ferus-Comelo
5.    "Made in China":  Electronics Workers in the World's Fastest Growing Economy
Apo Leong and Sanjiv Pandita
6.    Corporate Social Responsibility in Thailand's Electronics Industry
Tira Foran and David A. Sonnenfeld
7.    Electronic Workers in India
Sanjiv Pandita
8.    Out of the Shadows and into the Gloom?  Worker and Community Health in and around Central and Eastern Europe's Semiconductor Plants
Andrew Watterson

PART II.  ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND LABOR RIGHTS
Section Introduction
9.    From Grassroots to Global:  SVTC's Milestones in Building a Movement for Corporate Accountability and Sustainability in the High-Tech Industry
Leslie Byster and Ted G. Smith
10.    The Struggle of Occupational Health in Silicon Valley   
Amanda Hawes with David N. Pellow
11.    Immigrant Workers in Two Eras:  Struggles and Successes in Silicon Valley
David N. Pellow and Glenna Matthews
12.    Worker Health at National Semiconductor, Greenock: Freedom to Kill? (Scotland)
James McCourt
13.    Community-Based Organizing for Labor Rights, Health and the Environment: Television Manufacturing on the Mexico-U.S. Border
Connie García and Amelia Simpson
14.    Labor Rights and Occupational Health in Jalisco's Electronic Industry
(Mexico)
Raquel E. Partida Rocha
15.    Breaking the Silicon Silence:  Giving Voice to Health and Environmental Impacts within Taiwan's Hsinchu Science Park
Shenglin Chang, Hua-mei Chiu, and Wenling Tu
16.    Human Lives Valued Less than Dirt:  Former RCA Workers Contaminated by Pollution Fighting Worldwide for Justice (Taiwan)
Yu-ling Ku
17.    Unionizing Electronics:  The Need for New Strategies
Robert Steiert

PART III.  E-WASTE & EXTENDED PRODUCER RESPONSIBILITY
Section Introduction

18.    The Electronics Production Lifecycle.  From Toxics to Sustainability:  Getting Off the Toxic Treadmill
Leslie Byster and Ted G. Smith
19.    High-Tech Pollution in Japan:  Growing Problems, Alternative Solutions
Fumikazu Yoshida
20.    High-Tech's Dirty Little Secret:  Economics and Ethics of the Electronic Waste Trade
Jim Puckett
21.    High-tech Heaps, Forsaken Lives:  E-waste in Delhi (India)
Ravi Agarwal and Kishore Wankhade
22.    Importing Extended Producer Responsibility for Electronic Equipment into the United States
Chad Raphael and Ted G. Smith
23.    International Environmental Agreements and the Information Technology Industry
Ken Geiser and Joel Tickner
24.    Design Change in Electrical and Electronic Equipment:  Impacts of
Extended Producer Responsibility Legislation in Sweden and Japan
Naoko Tojo
25.    ToxicDude.com:  the Dell Market Campaign (USA)
David Wood and Robin Schneider

APPENDICES
Appendix A.  Environmental Justice Principles   
Appendix B.  Silicon Principles   
Appendix C.  Sample Shareholder Resolutions   
Appendix D.  Computer Take-Back Campaign Statement of Principles
Appendix E.  Recycler's Pledge of Responsibility

RESOURCES
Acronyms Used
References
Resources
Index