Forum on The struggle in Asia for sustainable electronics and safer workplaces, on October 26th at at UC Berkeley. The forum is by a reception to celebrate the 10th anniversary of International Campaign for Responsible Technology. This forum is the kickoff for the American Public Health Association conference on October 28-31, which will have panel sessions on Hazardous chemicals in electronics: Occupational health issues and policy recommendations to address design, production, and end of life; and on Epidemiological Review of the Health Impacts in the Global Electronics Industry.

Factories across Asia make the consumer products we use every day, from clothes to electronics, on shop floors that overwork, underpay, and poison workers while polluting the land and water of the communities where they operate.


A panel of activists fighting for healthier, safer, and fairer workplaces in Asia will explore the health and social impacts of this unsustainable model of production while sharing what has worked and what is needed to change these industries.  The panel is made up of Yuying, Jeong-ok, Sanjiv Pandita and Yi-ping.

Yuying survived the Zhili factor fire in 1993 that took the lives of 80 workers. She has become a tireless defender and organizer of injured and ill workers in China though the Selfempowerment Service Center for Disabled Persons. Yuying will receive the OSH Section International Award at this year’s APHA.

Jeong-ok is a leading figure among Korean occupational health professionals. Currently a fulltime activist with Supporters for the Health and Rights of People in the Semiconductor Industry (SHARPS),
she focusses on cancer and other diseases among younger workers at Samsung plants in Korea.

Sanjiv Pandita is Executive  Director of the Asia Monitor Resource Centre (AMRC) and has been on the front lines of labor activism in Asia for more than a decade. He was named one of the 50 most influential Environmental, Health and Safety leaders in 2008.

Yi-ping is a PhD and an Associate Professor at the National Yang MingUniversity in Taiwan. She has been studying and evaluating the disease patterns in the electronics industry in Taiwan
and will present her findings at this year’s APHA.

 

Organisations sponsoring the event include:
Center for Environmental Health  •  Center for Occupational & Environmental Health (COEH)  •  Clean Production Action  •  Hesperian Health Guides  •  International Campaign for Responsible Technology (ICRT)  •  International POPS Elimination Network (IPEN)  •  Labor and Occupational Health Program (LOHP)  •  Maquiladora Health & Safety Support Network  •  National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH)  •  San Francisco Physicians for Social Responsibility  (SFPSR)  •  Santa Clara Central Labor Council  •  Story of Stuff/ GAIA (Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives)  •  Texas Campaign for the Environment  •  Worksafe