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Page 14/What She Wants/March, 1978
continued from page 5
Electronics Factory
There are numerous hazards in the work. Some people are regularly exposed to chemicals such as trichlorethylene, an industrial solvent that causes damage to the lungs, liver, nervous system, kidneys, and heart. Workers who make the small components such as transistors must breathe silicon dioxide dust, a substance that causes silicosis, a lung disease. The most universal hazard, suffered by most assemblers, is severe eyestrain, which leads to headaches, deterioration of vision, and eye disease. This is the result of continual work with small parts (smaller than a fingernail) at close range, or even under a microscope.
OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) has done very little to help workers. Besides if you call them, you have to give your name and thus risk losing your job.
Less than 15% of the industry is unionized; only 2 shops in San Diego have unions. There are several reasons for this: first, it is a young industry. Unions tend to concentrate in established industries and large workplaces. Second, the electronics firms deliberately locate in low-wage, non-union areas.
Another reason is that union drives have been met with strong resistance from employers, who are organized into WEMA, the Western Electronic Manufacturers Association, representing 160 West Coast firms. WEMA is dedicated to preventing unionization in the industry; it holds semi-annual conferences on union-busting techniques, and helps support smaller companies who otherwise could not afford a strike or sustain an anti-union campaign,
Because the bulk of the workers are women, and women have been traditionally excluded from most unions (except the more progressive ones such as the United Electrical Workers), there is less experience with unions. The sell-out politics of big union bureaucrats such as George Meany haven't helped give'workers a positive view of unions, either. On the other hand, there are positive developments. The Women's Movement is being felt in the factories; women are growing more and more discon: tented with unequal wages, unequal opportunities and lack of childcare.
,,
The international situation is particularly important because of the 200 or more "runaway" American-owned electronics factories in the Mexican border states. Some San Diego companies have "twin plants" -one on this side for research and management, one on the Mexican side for laborintensive work. There young women assemble TV's and radios for less than $1 an hour.
"I work in a factory in Juarez. The company said it was a blessing that these young women could work there instead of being prostitutes. But look, they're dying in those factories!
Many companies have even run away from Mexico to Asian countries such as the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Indonesia where young women, between the ages of 16 and 22, are paid less than $1 a day to make tiny components that we put in circuit boards in our factories. Working with highly toxic substances, usually under microscopes, these women become "unemployable" by age 22 or so, because of failing vision, illness and being "too slow". All of this illustrates the international hierarchy of labor that these multi-national corporations have developed. Workers in more than 26 countries are being exploited to an even greater degree by the same countries Americans work for. And we find that when we organize here, our company may move to Asia or the Caribbean. Capital is more mobile than we are, so we find they have us working against each other.
American companies have only one purpose: to increase profits. They are not benevolently giving out jobs. They pick up and leave as fast as they arrive, with no concern for the workers. When there was a slump in the industry in 1975, 40 plants left
the Mexican border areas, laying off 20,000 workers (who had moved from the interior to work there). Instead of getting better, the workers' position worsens, as their material desires increase. They work daily making products that they can never buy. In fact, electronics production is 100% for American markets.
How do these companies get by with it? We pay for it. It is no coincidence that electronics production is concentrated in countries with dictatorial governments. They, with the abundant help of U.S. military and economic aid, are able to repress any workers' movements that arise. Almost all have laws against unions and the right to strike. Thus, our taxes directly finance regimes that enable capitalists to take our jobs overseas. Meanwhile, unemployment rises at home.
--Majority Report, 12/11/77-1/6/78 reprinted from Feminist Communications, June, 1977
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