Occupational and Environmental Hazards: the Campaign in Silicon Valley Presented at the International Symposium on Labor Rights and Environmental Justice in the Electronics Industry Graduate School of Public Health Seoul National University Seoul, Korea November 12, 2011 Ted Smith, Founder, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition; Electronics TakeBack Coalition; and International Campaign for Responsible Technology www.icrt.co
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Occupational and Environmental Hazards:
the Campaign in Silicon Valley
Presented at the International Symposium on Labor Rights and
• In the mid 1970's, a small group of people started meeting to discuss concerns over the chemical-handling aspects of the semiconductor industry and what might be done to raise these issues publicly. The group was called ECOSH, Electronics Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. ECOSH members included electronics workers, occupational nurses, attorneys, industrial hygienists, engineering and medical students, labor, environmental and religious leaders.
History of organizing for better conditions
• Organized an effort to ban the use of TCE
• Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health (SCCOSH) was formally organized in 1978. ECOSH continued as a SCCOSH project into the early 1980s, gaining recognition for a vigorous and largely successful campaign to ban TCE as well as energetic support and advocacy for many workers trying to win better conditions for themselves and co-workers.
History of organizing for better conditions
• Another early SCCOSH project was
Injured Workers United, a support group
for workers already affected by chemical
exposures, trying to secure fair
compensation, decent medical care and
retraining. The Silicon Valley Toxics
Coalition (SVTC) also started out as an
early project of SCCOSH.
History of organizing for better conditions
1978 Community testing for TCE in breast milk –
organizers use fliers, newspaper, radio, phone hot line -
500 people are tested for TCE
1978 Campaign to Ban TCE (Cal-OSHA lowers PEL from
100 to 25 ppm.)
1980 NIOSH HHE finds narcotic and irritant symptoms
in clean room environment; all solvent exposures below
PELs, yet workers are getting sick.
1981 HESIS reproductive hazard alert on glycol
ethers
1983 Cal- OSHA semiconductor study does not
investigate reproductive and cancer hazards
1983 Cal- OSHA semiconductor study does not
investigate reproductive and cancer hazards
1985 Media charge chip makers with keeping two sets of
records for toxic exposures and systematically
underreporting # of affected workers.
History of organizing for better conditions
1981 – Toxic leaks into the water supply discovered at Fairchild
and IBM
1982 – Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition formed as a project of
SCCOSH
1983 Cal- OSHA semiconductor study does not investigate
reproductive and cancer hazards
1984 - “The not so clean business of making chips” by Dr. Joseph
LaDou published in Technology Review from MIT
1985 Media charge chip makers with keeping two sets of records
for toxic exposures and systematically underreporting # of
affected workers.
History of organizing for better conditions
1986 - First report of elevated miscarriage and illness rates in clean rooms reported at Digital Equipment Corporation
1986 - IBM workers ask about cancer in clean rooms. IBM says ‘no problem’
1992 – Results of epidemiological reports by IBM and Semiconductor Industry Association report high rates of miscarriages
1992 - First call for replacement of ethylene glycol ethers: “Campaign to end the Miscarriage of Justice”
2000s – HealthWatch organizes WE LEAP OSH trainings for 12 ethnic groups, including Chinese, Cambodian, Indonesian, Indian, Korean, Latino, Vietnamese, etc.
Unions
Organizing Silicon Valley's High Tech Workers
by David Bacon
• From the beginning, high tech workers had to face an industry-wide anti-union policy. Robert Noyce, who participated in the invention of the transistor, and later became a co-founder of Intel Corp., declared that "remaining non-union is an essential for survival for most of our companies. If we had the work rules that unionized companies have, we'd all go out of business. This is a very high priority for management here. We have to retain flexibility in operating our companies. The great hope for our nation is to avoid those deep, deep divisions between workers and management which can paralyze action."
“ new concerns … may prove a potential black eye for a high technology industry that … sought to portray itself as clean and with little impact on the environment.
Women exposed to certain chemicals … in the nation’s semiconductor factories face a significantly higher risk of miscarriage, a broad industry-financed study has found. The study is the 3rd in 4 years to find that … glycol ethers have toxic effects. “
Oct 12 and Dec. 4, 1992
IBM Corporate Mortality File http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1626450/
• IBM maintained records of 30,000 workers that
identified cause of death over 30 years
• Records were analyzed by Dr. Richard Clapp,
epidemiologist at Boston Univ.
• Breast cancer deaths in women at IBM were
2.42 times the expected number
• Similar findings for brain cancer, kidney cancer,
non-Hodgikins lymphoma
IBM settles chemical suit
January 23, 2001 Case involved
microchip site workers' son
• By Craig Wolf Poughkeepsie Journal A lawsuit described as the first to test claims that chemicals in a microchip plant could be harmful to people has been settled, the parties said Monday. IBM Corp. and attorneys for Zachary Ruffing, a 15-year-old whose parents both had worked in the 1980s at IBM's East Fishkill plant, confirmed that an agreement had been reached.
• Settlements typically involve payment by the defendant. Neither side would disclose what IBM or two chemical companies involved in the suit would pay.
• IBM said ''human factors'' played a role in the decision. It still denies guilt.
• ''I think it's an enormously important case, partly because of the really serious damage suffered by Zach Ruffing and his family, and partly because this is the first major test case of its kind involved the high-tech industry,'' said Ted Smith, executive director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition in San Jose, Calif.
Practice precaution: close the gap
between environmental and workplace
PELS
68 chemicals known to the State of California to
cause cancer or reproductive harm are totally
unregulated by Cal-OSHA or regulated only for non-