"The Political Economy of Work and Health in Silicon Valley" Article Report

The piece “The Political Economy of Work and Health in the Silicon Valley” by David Naguib Pellow and Lisa Sun-Hee Park gave some very interesting insight about what working in the Silicon Valley is like. This piece was very eye opening because most people do not realize how large of a group low-wage workers are in the Silicon Valley. What comes to mind, for most people, when they hear Silicon Valley, are the well paid executives of high tech industries. This piece discussed the grim living conditions and the dangerous chemicals that are a part of these low- wage workers everyday work and living environments. These workers experience inequalities in the workplace and environmental injustice throughout their lifetime.

Pellow and Park explain that the executives at these chip industries have repeatedly manipulated health data in order to claim that there is no correlation between the chemicals these works are exposed to and the many illnesses they face. The studies that have been carried out also fail to realize that these workers are typically exposed to multiple chemicals in electronic plants, and they are often exposed to them in their living environments as well (Pellow and Park 100-101). Electronics plants have continuously tried to keep up their image as a clean industry in order to continue to survive in the Silicon Valley. However, there has been a clear increased likelihood of birth defects, miscarriages, respiratory problems, eye and skin irritation, and many other illnesses. However, no significant progress has been made to protect all workers from these dangers (Pellow and Park 102- 103). Additionally, workers in these plants are typically immigrants and people of color who tend to not speak out about these injustices. The high tech industries in the Silicon Valley tend to selectivity recruit workers who they believe are less likely to organize collectivity or speak out against injustices (Pellow and Park 88).

The ideas presented in this piece are agreed upon by most scholars and reviewers in the field; however, the piece did receive some negative feedback from some reviewers. Aneesh Aneesh from Stanford University explains in his review that he felt that Pellow and Park tried to discuss the experiences of too many different groups of people. He did not think using the umbrella term “people of color” and lumping together the injustices faced by immigrants, African Americans, and many other groups was effective. Also, he expresses that Pellow and Park should have mentioned that not all immigrants have faced a grim life in the Silicon Valley. Many immigrant programmers and entrepreneurs have not had to experience the injustices of chemical exposure in high tech industries (Aneesh 1306). I agree with this review that grouping all “people of color” was not the most effective way in which to present the story of workers in the Silicon Valley. By narrowing this analysis down to only a specific group of workers Pellow and Park would have most likely been able to present a more detailed analysis and convince the reader to believe their claims. Overall this piece was very eye opening and was a good generalized summary of the lives of low wage workers in the Silicon Valley.  

  

Works Cited: 

Aneesh, Aneesh. "The Silicon Valley of Dreams: Environmental Injustice, Immigrant Workers, and the High-Tech Global Economy." The International Migration Review 37.4 (2003): 1305-6. ProQuest. Web. 3 Nov. 2014.

David Naguib Pellow and Lisa Sun-Hee Park, “The political economy of work and health in silicon valley,” in The Silicon Valley of Dreams: Environmental Injustice, Immigrant Workers, and the High-Tech Global Economy (2002).