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Challenging The Chip

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Category: Non-fiction book stubs

Challenging The Chip is a 2006-published book on "labour rights and
environmental justice in the global electronics industry". It is
published by Temple University Press, Philadelphia. In three parts,
the book looks at global electronics, environmental justice and labour
righs, and electronic waste and extended producer responsibility.In
four apendices, the book also deals with the principles of
environmental justice, the computer take-back campaign, sample
shareholder resolutions, and the electronics recycler's pledge of true
stewardship.

This 357-page book (ISBN 1059213-330-4) was put together by "scores of
people around the world (who) have been involved over the course of
several years in the conceptualization, development, editing and
production (of it)".
Contents
[hide]

* 1 "Downside not addressed"
* 2 Third World women's labour, pollute surroundings
* 3 Comments on the book
* 4 Regions covered
* 5 Contributors
* 6 Editors
* 7 External links

[edit] "Downside not addressed"

Says an introduction to its contents: "Of the millions of words
written over the past several decades about the electronics industry's
incredible transformation of our world, far too few have been
addressed (to) the downside of this revolution. Many are surprised to
learn that environmental degredation and occupational health hazards
are as much a part of high-tech manufacturing as miniaturization and
other such marvels."

[edit] Third World women's labour, pollute surroundings

Editors Ted Smith, David A Sonnenfeld and David Naguib Pellow also
comment: "Although most consumers are eager to enjoy their latest
computers, televisions, cellular phones, iPods, and electronic games,
few relate the declining prices of these and other electronic
technologies to the labor of Third World women, who are paid pennies a
day. Fewer still realize that the amazingly powerful microprocessors
and superminiaturized, high-capacity memory devices harm the workers
who produce them and pollute the sorrounding communities' air and
water.

[edit] Comments on the book

Dr. Sandra Steingraber, author of the book Living Downstream: An
Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment calls this book
"essential reading for anyone who owns a cell phone or a computer" and
says "our digital possessions connect us not only to global
information but also to global contamination and injustice". MIT
Professor of Technology and Policy and co-author of Technology,
Globalization, and Sustainable Development calls the work "an
impressive, comprehensive critique and hopeful, but realistic,
blueprint for transforming the global electronics industry into a
sustainable one encompassing technological advance, environmental
improvement, and equitable, safe, and secure employment".

Jan Mazurek of the University of California at Los Angeles's
Department of Urban Planning and author of Making Microchips says that
"contrary to high tech's clean image, this pioneering work illustrates
the industry's environmental and economic downsides from the
birthplace of Silicon Valley to the four corners of the globe to which
the industry recently has spread". Mazurek comments that this book is
"told from the compelling and passionate perspective of workers and
activists involved in these struggles".

[edit] Regions covered

Chapters of the book cover "Made in China" electronics workers,
Thailand's electronic sector's corporate social responsibility,
electronic workers in India, workers in and around Central and Eastern
Europe's semiconductor plants (Russia, Belarus, Slovakia, Czech
Republic, Poland and Romania), Silicon Valley's Toxics' Coalition and
workers' struggles, Mexico, Taiwan's Hsinchu Science Park, other
issues from Taiwan, high-tech pollution in Japan, the electronic waste
trade, e-waste in Delhi, producer responsibility laws in Sweden and
Japan, among other themes.

[edit] Contributors

Its contributors include David A Sonnenfeld, Boy Lüthje, Joseph LaDou,
Anibel Ferus-Comelo, Apo Leong, Sanjiv Pandita, Tira Foran, Andrew
Watterson, Andrew Watterson, Shengling Chang, Leslie A. Byster, Ted
Smith,David N. Pellow, Glenna Matthews, James McCourt, Connie García,
Amelia Simpson, Raquel E. Partida Rocha, Hua-Mei Chiu, Wen-Ling Tu,
Yu-Ling Ku, Robert Steiert, Leslie A. Byster, Ted Smith, Fumikazu
Yoshida, Jim Puckett, Ravi Agarwal, Kishore Wankhade, Chad Raphael,
Ted Smith, Ken Geiser, Joel Tickner, Naoko Tojo, David Wood and Robin
Schneider.

[edit] Editors

This book is edited by Ted Smith, David A Sonnenfeld and David Naguib
Pellow, with Leslie A. Byser, Shenglin Chang, Amanda Hawes, Wen-Ling
Tu, and Andrew Watterson. Its foreword is by Jim Hightower.

[edit] External links

* Asian Monitor Resource Centre (AMRC), Hong Kong
* Basel Action Network (BAN), Seattle
* Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), Amsterdam
* Computer TakeBack Campaign (CTBC), California
* Enviornmental Health Coalition, California
* International Camapign for Responsible Technology, San Jose
* International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health
* International Metalworkers' Federation, Geneva
* Lowell Centre for Sustainable Production
* People Organized in Defence of Eartth and Her Resources (PODER)
* Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, SVTC, San Jose
* South West Organizing Project, Albuquerque, NM
* Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, Albuquerque
* Taiwan Association for Victims of Occupational Injuries, TAVOI, Taipei
* Taiwan Environmental Action Network, Taipei City
* Texas Campaign for the Environment
* Thai Labour Campaigns, Bangkok
* Toxics Link, New Delhi
* Worksafe! A California Coalition

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