Spring 2000
Justice for Piece Work
(excerpts of Testimony of JoLani Hironaka, SCCOSH Executive Director before Committee on Industrial Relations, March 23, 2000)
Why are workers bringing the hazards of electronic manufacturing into their homes?..Assembly workers are not knowingly endangering their children and family members. They are replicating the very practices they learned doing assembly in regular jobs and job training programs-- a direct reflection of poor to non-existent health and safety practices commonly found throughout this echelon of the electronics industry.
How are employers passing on health and safety risks to workers and the environment without accountability?..Like garment manufacturing, electronics assembly features overcompetitive subcontracting, poverty-level wages, piece rate compensation, chemical and ergonomic hazards, routine health and safety violations, no medical benefits, retaliation, and an immigrant, largely female, non-union workforce--what the public commonly refer to as sweatshop conditions.
What can responsible enforcement agencies to do bring this industrial sector into compliance?....A comprehensive program should be developed. Workers are told their employers are “in compliance” with all OSHA standards, but not informed that OSHA has established legal limits of exposure for less than 1% of the 90,0000 chemicals in common industrial use. This means workers are guinea pigs for the technological advances in computers and electronics manufacturing. Studies show that computer chip workers suffered higher rates of miscariage. When industry had the option of cooperating in building such a database that could be linked to disease registries, they refused. Intel said, “To participate in a project like this would be giving discovery to plaintiffs. I might as well take a gun and shoot myself”.
What legislative strategies are needed to bring this sector into compliance? First we need to redress the damage that has already been done to working poor families in this valley. Second, we need legislation to hold manufauctures accountable for unpaid wages, health and safety violations, and illegal dumping of environmental hazards from regular home assembly.
(Contact SCCOSH at 408-998-4050 for a full copy of the testimony)
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