Redesigning the Electronics Supply Chain to Prioritize the Health and Safety of Workers and Communities

The manufacture and use of electronic products has increased dramatically over the past several decades, outpacing society’s ability to ameliorate its impacts on worker and community health and safety. As electronic product acceptance has increased, so have worker suicides (approx.38 in China from 2010-2013, at least 7 in 2014), factory accidents and explosions, wildcat strikes over wages and conditions (estimated at 2 per day, each involving thousands of workers), and cancers and other long-term illnesses for workers.  Statistics are difficult to gather due to corporate and governmental media control in China, however the courageous work of SAICOM, Labor Action China, and others allows an estimation of the contours of labor (if not yet health) problems. These Chinese organizations have joined with academics, business, worker and consumer organizations under the banners of the International Campaign for Responsible Technology and GoodElectronics to develop a unified approach to replace toxic substances and behaviors from the electronic supply chain: from extraction (prohibition of war minerals) to design (engineering for durability, upgradability, and repairability) to production (green chemistry, safe and dignified jobs) to distribution to recycling (producer take-back and prohibition of dumping). This session will describe the harms caused by electronics production across the supply chain, introduce key concepts of green chemistry in the substitution of toxic products, and emphasize the importance of occupational safety and health organizing around workplace, community, and social hazards caused by electronics in a cradle to grave context.