Worker and Community Health & Safety in the Electronics Industry

by Mandy Hawes, Sanjiv Pandita & Ted Smith

The electronics industry, often seen as environmentally friendly because it lacks smokestacks and has visibly clean ‘cleanrooms,’ hides a darker reality. Behind the shine of smartphones and laptops powered by ever-smaller semiconductor chips, there is a long ongoing history of environmental damage, systemic neglect, and serious occupational hazards—especially for workers at the bottom of the supply chain. Electronic workers, from Silicon Valley’s cleanrooms to Asia’s assembly sweatshops, particularly migrant women workers, have faced and continue to face disproportionate exposure to hazardous chemicals with little or no protection or justice.

What has emerged over 50 years since the industry began in Silicon Valley is not just isolated cases of worker and community harm but a widespread pattern of structural failure caused by corporate negligence, regulatory failures, lack of transparency, and workers’ lack of voice and power. These issues have all contributed to a global crisis in occupational and environmental health within the industry. 

A Toxic Industry Built on Structural Inequality

As early as the 1970s, residents and public health advocates in Silicon Valley started raising concerns about the toxic risks of semiconductor manufacturing. These worries grew from increasing evidence that workers—many of them young women—were becoming ill due to exposure to solvents and other chemicals used in production. Miscarriages, cancers, birth defects, and neurological problems were reported with alarming frequency.

The Santa Clara Center for Occupational Health (SCCOSH) and the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) played pioneering roles in documenting these harms. They revealed how electronics companies— operating under the radar of environmental and workplace safety regulations—were leaking toxic chemicals into groundwater and exposing cleanroom workers to a mixture of unregulated substances.

The International Campaign for Responsible Technology (ICRT) was established in 2002 in response to the growing global scale of the issue. In the 2000s, the electronics industry had fully globalized, with a significant portion of manufacturing outsourced to Asia. Today, it employs more than 18 million people worldwide. A vast majority of these workers are women of childbearing age, engaged in tasks that involve handling hundreds—if not thousands—of toxic chemicals, many of which have never been disclosed or studied for long-term health effects.

These structural dynamics are deeply gendered and racialized. Women, especially in Global South countries such as China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Mexico, often work in lower-tier positions with high chemical exposure and limited workplace protections. Migrant workers—many undocumented or employed on temporary contracts—face additional vulnerabilities, including language barriers, fear of retaliation, and lack of access to healthcare or legal recourse.

Regulatory systems in these countries often prioritize foreign investment and industrial growth over labor protections. In many cases, governments permit transnational corporations to operate with minimal oversight, allowing cost-cutting practices that compromise worker safety and environmental health.

Long-Term Consequences: Generational Suffering and Systemic Denial

The cost of these structural failures has been paid both by workers and their families, communities, and future generations. Studies and anecdotal reports continue to emerge connecting occupational exposure to a wide range of health consequences—from spontaneous miscarriages and infertility to neurodevelopmental disorders in children.

Yvette Flores, a former electronics worker and long-time advocate with Safe Jobs Healthy Families (SJHF) in Silicon Valley, is one of many whose life was forever altered by toxic exposure. Her son Mark was born with developmental delays and behavioral issues, conditions she and others believe are directly tied to her work in cleanrooms decades ago. The organization now documents cases linking maternal exposure to solvents and heavy metals with a rise in autism, ADHD, and learning disabilities in children.

These findings are not new. In the 1980s, worker-led campaigns in the United States prompted industry-funded epidemiological studies that revealed elevated miscarriage rates among women working in chip production. Instead of comprehensive reform, however, the response was fragmented—some  companies changed specific practices, but systemic changes across the industry never materialized.

Compounding the challenge is a lack of comprehensive data. In the U.S., the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has only updated exposure limits for three chemicals in the past 25 years. Legal constraints, insufficient staffing, and chronic underfunding render the agency effectively toothless. Meanwhile, employers can provide Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) that are inaccurate, incomplete, and/or misleading. Often, chemicals are used in combination or at temperatures that alter their properties, rendering MSDS warnings obsolete or irrelevant.

Even more troubling is the legal double standard that governs workplace exposure. Under American law, permissible exposure limits (PELs) for workers are often significantly higher than what is allowed for the general public. Also,  a 2015 analysis by the Center for Public Integrity found that air samples exceeded OSHA’s lead exposure limits in 40% of cases across industries. Moreover, those thresholds themselves are dangerously outdated, failing to reflect current scientific understanding of lead toxicity, especially for reproductive health. An important resolution by The American Public health Association has called on the industry to adopt pollution prevention actions 

Lawsuits filed against IBM Corporation in the late 1990s by cancer-stricken workers and their families revealed how extensive the damage could be. Hundreds of claims linked rare cancers, birth defects, and neurological disorders to exposure inside IBM’s cleanrooms. While the company denied wrongdoing,  most cases were settled.

This pattern of denial continues today. Legal responsibility is evaded through subcontracting, temporary labor arrangements, and shifting production across borders. Workers are rarely informed of the full hazards they face, and compensation is virtually nonexistent for occupational illness in the electronics industry—especially for non-unionized, informal, or migrant laborers.

The Global Struggle for Reform

In recent years, the fight for electronics worker safety has gained new momentum. As semiconductor manufacturing re-enters public debate—particularly through initiatives like the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act—grassroots organizations and advocacy networks are seizing the moment to demand stronger protections for worker justice.

In 2024, a diverse coalition of labor unions, environmental justice organizations, and public health advocates (including ICRT) launched CHIPS Communities United (CCU). The coalition focuses on ensuring that public subsidies for semiconductor manufacturing are tied to enforceable commitments on worker health and safety, job quality, union rights, and environmental justice. The group advocates for community benefit agreements (CBAs) that include oversight from local communities and frontline workers, ensuring transparency and accountability from publicly funded manufacturers.

Internationally, advocacy networks such as ICRT and the GoodElectronics Network continue to push for global standards. In 2015, they issued the Chemical Challenge, endorsed by over 200 NGOs and labor unions, calling on electronics brands and suppliers to:

• Disclose all chemicals used in their manufacturing processes
• Substantiate claims of safety with independent science
• Transition to safer alternatives
• Provide compensation and remediation for those harmed

The challenge builds on earlier work under the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM), a global initiative under the UN that encourages voluntary industry compliance and multi-stakeholder dialogue. While progress has been slow, the visibility of these campaigns has grown in tandem with consumer awareness and regulatory concern.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has also taken steps to elevate occupational safety and health (OSH) as a core labor right. Through Conventions No. 155 (1981), No. 161 (1985), and No. 187 (2006), the ILO emphasizes the importance of national OSH frameworks, access to health services for workers, and the integration of safety in industrial policy. These conventions offer a legal and moral foundation for national reforms, though ratification and enforcement remain inconsistent.

Toward Structural Change: Principles for a Just Electronics Industry

The electronics industry has long avoided the accountability faced by other supply chains, and transforming it requires a structural overhaul rooted in justice, transparency, and accountability. Key principles include mandatory disclosure of all chemicals used in production, ensuring the Right to Know for workers and communities, regular and independent health monitoring for workers—especially those in vulnerable populations or high-risk roles—and legal mandates to replace toxic substances with safer alternatives.  Public investments like the CHIPS Act must be linked to enforceable community benefit agreements that safeguard workers and the environment. Global brands need to be held accountable for workers’ safety and environmental standards throughout their entire supply chains—covering mining, manufacturing, and e-waste. The right to organize and collective bargaining should be protected, especially in high-risk areas, and occupational safety must be incorporated into all trade, industrial, and investment policies through binding mechanisms. 

Conclusion: A Turning Point for Accountability and Justice

We stand at a critical juncture. Governments are investing billions in revitalizing domestic chip production. Consumers are increasingly demanding ethical supply chains. And a new generation of advocates is pushing back against decades of neglect.

To seize this moment, we must go beyond incremental reforms. We must build a just and sustainable electronics industry rooted in transparency, worker empowerment, and environmental justice. Only by acknowledging the full cost of our technological age—and by centering the voices of those who have borne that cost—can we build a future that is truly clean, green, and just.

About the Authors

Mandy Hawes is a lawyer and long-time advocate for the health of electronics workers and their children. Co-founder of the Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health in 1977 and past president of Worksafe, she has spent over four decades addressing the health impacts of chemical exposure in the electronics industry worldwide. She has successfully litigated cases for affected workers and families, pushing for stronger exposure standards and the phase-out of reproductive toxicants. She is also the founder of Safe Jobs Healthy Families, a project of the International Campaign for Responsible Technology.

Hawes is a graduate of Wellesley College and Harvard Law School.

Sanjiv Pandita is an occupational and environmental health expert with decades of work on workers’ rights in the electronics industry. A founder of the Asian Network for the Rights of Occupational and Environmental Victims (ANROEV), he has worked with grassroots groups across Asia on supply chain hazards and worker organizing and OHS training. He has received international awards, including from the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, and was named one of the 50 most influential Environmental, Health and Safety leaders in 2008. He is also the current Asia Program Senior Advisor of the Solidarity Center.

Ted Smith is the founder of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition and co-founder of the International Campaign for Responsible Technology (ICRT), a global network promoting sustainable, nonpolluting technologies. He has advised the EPA’s environmental initiatives for the electronics sector and is an advisor to several environmental justice and labor rights groups. He is co-author and Co-editor of “Challenging the chip: labor rights and environmental justice in the global electronics industry”. Smith also serves on the design team of the Clean Electronics Production Network (CEPN).

References

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ANROEV & International Campaign for Responsible Technology. (2024). Biomonitoring of solvent and heavy metal exposure in Batam electronics workers. Internal report.

CHIPS Communities United. (2024). CHIPS Communities United 2024 Impact Report. Retrieved from https://chipscommunitiesunited.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/CCU-2024-Impact-Reportfnl-1.pdf

International Campaign for Responsible Technology. (2025). Chemical Challenge. Retrieved from https://icrt.co/chemical-challenge/

International Labour Organization. (1981). Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 1981 (No. 155) and its Protocol of 2002. Retrieved from https://www.ilo.org/

International Labour Organization. (1985). Occupational Health Services Convention, 1985 (No. 161). Retrieved from https://www.ilo.org/

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Morris, J. (2024). The 73-year-old taking on the tech giants. International Campaign for Responsible Technology. Retrieved from https://icrt.co/the-73-year-old-taking-on-the-tech-giants/Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. (n.d.). About SVTC. Retrieved from https://svtc.org/