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02/10/2008
The mobile phone industry is often presented as a clean, unproblematic industry, but a report recently published by a Dutch NGO shows that this is not the case. Young electronics workers handle chemicals without protective gear. They work inhumane overtime hours to cover basic needs and are punished if they make mistakes. In the export processing zones in Asia where the factories are located, protests are often brutally suppressed.
The NGO makeITfair has investigated labour conditions at six factories that produce components for Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, LG, Sony Ericsson and Apple’s iPhone in China and the Philippines. The report, titled "Silenced to Deliver", revealed that working conditions there violate national laws, conventions of the International Labour Organisation as well as the mobile phone companies’ own codes of conduct on issues such as working hours and use of hazardous chemicals.
"Health and safety is not only about providing the right equipment, but also about giving the employees the possibility to use it. Workers we have interviewed for this report show symptoms that are typical for mishandling of chemicals. Education and a reasonable work pace are urgently needed if their health is to be protected", says Jenny Chan at Hong Kong-based SACOM, which coordinated the research in China. Workers interviewed for this report complain about muscle strains, eye problems, allergies, dizziness, exhaustion, burn injuries, cuttings, chest pains and weight loss. At one factory in Shenzhen, which produces printed circuit boards for Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and LG, workers state that they are not provided with sufficient protective gear while handling chemicals.
In some of the factories workers complain that the fast work needed to meet the quotas, as well as hot and badly ventilated factories, sometimes means that workers do not use the protective gear that they have been provided with. High speed work is therefore endangering the health of workers both directly - through exhaustion, muscle strains, cuttings, etcetera - and indirectly, when workers do not have time to put on the equipment needed.
In both China and the Philippines, electronics workers are silenced through anti-union tactics used by both the employers and the state. In China, the number of strikes and the reports about violations of labour rights to the authorities have increased significantly the last few years, a trend that the government has tried to counter by introducing more thorough labour laws. However, labour inspections are few, and free and independent unions are prohibited.
Every second, 36 mobile phones are manufactured. Half of them are made in China. Asia has become the world’s electronics factory, and most of the mobile phones we buy are produced by female workers aged 16 to 30.
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