Toxic Sweatshops: Regulating the Import of Hazardous Electronics
Toxic Sweatshops: Regulating the Import of Hazardous Electronics
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Follow this and additional works at: http://academicworks.cuny.edu/clr Recommended Citation Allie Robbins, Toxic Sweatshops: Regulating the Import of Hazardous Electronics, 18 CUNY L. Rev. 267 (2015). Available at: http://academicworks.cuny.edu/clr/vol18/iss2/4
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TOXIC SWEATSHOPS: REGULATING THE
IMPORT OF HAZARDOUS ELECTRONICS
Allie Robbins †
INTRODUCTION
The rise in consumer use of personal electronic devices has
led to a boon in electronics manufacturing worldwide. Along with
the expansion of production have come serious questions about
the safety of production processes, as large numbers of workers
and their children have fallen ill. This article proposes that the
United States create an Electronics Import Safety Commission,
similar to the Consumer Protection Safety Commission (CPSC), to
regulate the import of electronic devices and make sure that both
workers and consumers are safe.
In Part I, I outline some of the health concerns that have
arisen in the global electronics-manufacturing sector. Part II
provides a brief overview of the global electronics supply chain, while
Part III explores some of the ways that the United States currently
regulates global production. In Part IV, I detail key aspects of the
CPSC and the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008
(CPSIA). I propose that the CPSC serve as a model for the
development of the Electronics Import Safety Commission.
† Allie Robbins is the Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs at the City University of
New York School of Law.
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CUNY LAW REVIEW
HEALTH CONCERNS IN ELECTRONICS MANUFACTURING
A lot has been written recently about the increasing use of
electronic devices by infants and toddlers, and the concern that
this use might negatively impact their brain development.1 The
American Academy of Pediatrics’s most recent policy statement on
the topic discourages screen media exposure for children less than
two years of age.2 Little attention has been paid, however, to
potential long-term health effects of manufacturing those electronic
devices. Even less attention has been paid to the health of the
children of those workers. “The issue of reproductive toxicity,
when children fall ill because of the accumulation of various toxic
compounds over a long period in their parents’ bodies, has not
surfaced very often because many parents blame themselves and
keep their children’s condition hidden.”3 Yet the issue is very real
and quite serious. Many individuals who have labored in
semiconductor factories have experienced not only death and long-term
illness themselves, but have also suffered “infertility and
miscarriages.”4 Those who are able to conceive sometimes give birth to
children with chronic debilitating illness.5 It is critical that we pay
attention to these members of the electronic device revolution as
well.
While little has been done to address reproductive toxicity,
slow but important progress is being made in addressing the health
and safety concerns of workers who work in electronics
manufacturing plants. On April 21, 2014, “the ninth civil division of Seoul
High Court . . . ruled . . . that the leukemia claimed the lives of
former Samsung Electronic semiconductor plant workers Hwang
Yu-mi and Lee Sook-young constituted an industrial accident,”
ending years of legal battles over Samsung’s complicity in the
2015]
deaths of these two young women.6 “The court acknowledged that
they had been exposed to benzene and ionizing radiation, both
known causes of leukemia.”7 “The court also acknowledged the
possibility of ‘partial exposure to harmful substances’ for the three
other victims, but did not recognize their diseases as industrial
accidents.”8 This case led to an unprecedented “public apology to
workers who contracted rare cancers linked to chemicals at its
semiconductor plants and to the surviving family members.”9 “The
company’s statement fell shy of accepting a connection between
some of the diseases, including leukemia, and carcinogens used in
its plans, a link Samsung has always denied.”10 The apology did
state, however, that “Samsung would make ‘appropriate
compensation to those who were affected and their families.’ ”11 On January
16, 2015
, Samsung announced that it would “compensate all
former workers who contracted leukemia and other diseases after
working at its display and semiconductor facilities.”12 In a huge
breakthrough for workers who have become ill with leukemia,
Samsung Electronics’s chief negotiator Baek Soo-hyun stated,
“Samsung workers who left two decades ago could be
compensated, while those who left a decade after the illnesses developed
would also be included for monetary compensation.”13
This game-changing judicial decision, and Samsung’s apolog (...truncated)