The Clean UP Your Computer campaign

A group tabulates the true cost of high technology, and targets the largest of the world's equipment makers in an awareness campaign

by L Jara Diaz

A damming report based on the working conditions in the computer industry was released this month by the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development [CANFOD] based in the UK. With it, CAFOD launched its campaign "Clean UP Your Computer!" with the hope that, similar to what occurred with the clothing industry, consumers become aware of the appalling working conditions of workers in countries heralded as "emerging economies" that produce computers and related hardware. This is not a boycott but a fair trade campaign, asking consumers to demand the three biggest computer multinationals impose international labour standards on their suppliers.

While most of us have a picture of women assembling computers from parts made in the north, the truth of the matter, says the report, is that by the end of this year, up to 73% of the technology needed to make our computers will be outsourced to countries with "flexible" work forces, i.e., abundant cheap labor, and with work codes not worth the paper they are written on, if in fact they exist at all.

The mock ad on this page is a summary of the finding made by CAFOD. Mexican workers come a bit better off, since the pressure applied by those who opposed NAFTA forced negotiators to implement some kind of environmental and labour standards (even if Ontario doesn't follows these anymore). Some environmental, work safety, and standard provisions were put in place by the Mexicans, including rubber-stamp unions. However, the existence of recruitment agencies allowed technology suppliers to circumvent work standards. Under the Mexican labour code, if workers are hired by intermediaries and under short-time contracts, a series of benefits and workers' protections do not apply.

Regardless, bit by bit, Mexican workers were gaining some benefits. But then in 2001 the "New Economy" went bust, and with it went its back-bone, the technology industry. Since then, and due to pressures for higher profits and higher CEO salaries, multinationals demand suppliers cut production costs to the bare minimum, while rapidly increasing outsourcing. Silicon Valley and the Irish miracle, amongst others, are no more.

Until the you-know-what hit the fun, outsourcing was mostly about assemblage, with parts made in northern countries or in the so called "Asian Tiger" countries (i.e., Taiwan, Japan, and Singapore), where labour is expensive-those damn unions! Today, even the highly specialized manufacturing of parts is being outsourced to countries were labour is "flexible", i.e., abundantly cheap and not burdened by labour or safety standards. China is the newest and most promising kid on this block.

According to CAFOD, Mexican workers are now constantly being reminded of the Chinese threat, and hence are forced to lower their expectations, if they had any to begin with. Considering that NAFTA has left over on-and-a-half million small farmers and rural workers in total destitution, the possibility of a better tomorrow for those lucky enough to find work in the technology industry looks more and more grim.

Workers in China face indenture labour and most must live in dormitories provided by the factories. It's Victorian England all over again! The list of abuses these workers face is almost endless, making the workers in Mexico look like a privileged elite. At the end, the argument that free trade was a race to the bottom regarding labour standards and workers' rights fell short of reality. This is not a race to the bottom because there doesn't seem to be a bottom.

CAFOD is hopeful that raising awareness amongst Northern computer consumers and waking their moral outrage will help to revert the present trends in the technology industry. Their main argument is that, if consumers demand the betterment of working conditions at IBM, Dell and HP suppliers, this should not affect computer prices. After all, CAFOD argues, in the last three months of 2003, IBM had a profit of US$2.7 billion, while in 2003, a worker in Thailand made CAN$ 6.00 per day. Michel Dell, CEO of Dell, received CAN$328,648.00 per day.

It isn't that the three giants, which have the largest share of the world market, don't require some kind of working standards from their suppliers. The problem lies in that these standards don't stand up to scrutiny since they don't demand international levels, but "national" ones.

If a country doesn't have standards or they are easily circumvented, IBM, Dell and HP demands have as much lasting impact as if written on cyber paper. These three US multinationals are not the only ones at fault, says CAFOD. They were chosen because of their size. The expectation is that if the large ones clean up their computers, maybe the others will follow. The campaign is on .

However, if we use the clothing industry campaign as an example, there is little prospect for success. How many times have all of us, with guilt, bought cheap clothing made in El Salvador, sweat-shops be damned? Faced with massive lay offs, salary cuts, economic downturns, or couldn't care less attitudes, consumers in the north have plenty of excuses to justify their purchases of cheap items. But then again, changes are brought by the sum of all kinds of small struggles. Let's keep faith!

An afterthought: It is ironic that today the cry, "The Chinese are coming!" does no longer mean a threat to capitalism, but a hope to save it by further enslaving workers. We've taken a long step forward to your time, Marx, but don't despair, this time we are smoking theologically-liberated opium!

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