Safeguarding labour indistant factories: Health and safety governance in an electronicsglobal production network
Abstract
One of the many concerns over workers inthe electronics industry is their health and safety conditions in factories. Lead firms in the electronics industry use a variety of self-regulatory private standards and codes of conduct to govern health and safety in factories of their suppliers.Global suppliers in turn implement these private measures within their firms which include manufacturing sites located in distant locations.How these health and safety governance systems are implemented across borders in the electronics industry GPN is the focus of this paper.
The discussion and analysis connects the GPN framework with the governmentality literature to understand how private governance systems are implemented from a micro lens of day to day actions of health and safety managers.It aims to show how the self regulatory nature of standards and codes of conduct produce self-disciplinary effects on safety and health managers which enables the spread of corporate led governance programmes throughout a global industry. The analysis is based on a case study of printed circuit board manufacturing sites of suppliers to Hewlett Packard located in Penang, Malaysia.
- Introduction
Brand firms in the electronics industry have increasingly come under pressure to improve the conditions for workers in their global production networks (GPNs). Lead firms such as Hewlett Packard (HP) have responded by requiring its suppliers to implement private standards and an industry code of conduct. Governance over labour conditions is a key area of research in the GPN literature (Carswell and De Neve, forthcoming; Coe et al., 2008;Posthuma and Nathan, 2010). While much of the GPN research on labour governance aims to understand whether private codes and standards lead to improved worker conditions in developing countries (see Barrientos and Smith, 2007; de Neve, 2009; Nadvi, 2008), there has been less attention paid to how specific standards, for example on health and safety, are implemented in the everyday practices of managers such as safety and health officers (for an exception see Ruwanpura, forthcoming). Doing so requires a greater focus on the intra-firm level of power relations between actors engaged in governance activities. In a global firm it would require examining the actions between firm headquarters (which set and enforce governance measures) and manufacturing sites (that receive and implement the governance measures) in distant locations. Such an analytical lens requires a perspective on power that can capture the micro day to day relations and actions at the intra-firm and managerial level, which the governmentality literature provides. The understanding of governance and power using a governmentality perspective is rare in the GPN literature,which according to Hess (2008), may be due to the lack of analysing the relations inside a firm. This study therefore aims to partially fill this gapin the GPN literature on governance.
Linking the governmentality perspective and the GPN framework, this paper examineshow worker health and safety conditions are governed at five different manufacturing sites of suppliers to HP in Penang, Malaysia. The manufacturing sites examined in this case study are engaged in the production of printed circuit boards (PCBs). PCBs are essential components for electronics devices. Components such as semiconductor chips and capacitors are secured on PCBs in order to establish electrical connections between them. PCB production is one of the more hazardous activities in the electronics industry (LaDou, 2006). According to LaDou (2006) workers in PCB manufacturing and assembly factories can be exposed to toxic metals, solvents, acids and other hazardous chemicals. Some of these include glycol ether solvents, formaldehyde, dimethylformamide, brominated flame retardants and lead. These chemicals are reproductive toxins, toxic to many organ systems and human carcinogens. Thus, proper health and safety practices are of key importance to the manufacturing sites analysed in this research.
The focus of analysis is on the day to day governance activities of managers known as safety and health officers (SHOs) at the manufacturing sites and their relations with their headquarter counterparts and factory workers.Based on findings from fieldwork research, the analysis shows SHOs functioning not only as governors over the health and safety of workers at the manufacturing sites but also as objects to be governedthemselves as they implement self-regulatory measures and relay information to headquarters. The ability to implement governance systems across borders is made possible through the heavy documentation processes of reporting, self-monitoring and auditing that, while able to communicate and simplify complex health and safety risks on paper, leaves little knowledge of the actual health conditions of workers in factories – thereby questioning the usefulness of the governmentality techniques in safeguarding workers. Further, the embeddedness of these firms in a self-regulatory mode of governance is supported by a wider context of a self-governing regulatory environment and contestation within the domain of a self regulatory industry wide code of conduct.
The remainder of the paper proceeds as follows. After detailing the methodology conducted for this research, I will discuss the conceptual framework for understanding GPN governance using a governmentality perspective. Using this framework in the following section I discuss my empirical findings of the governance activities undertaken by SHOs at the Penang manufacturing sites and the key findings of a micro politics of day to day health and safety governance processes. Next, I will discuss the ways in which the self-regulatory governance approach within firms is supported by a wider context of self-regulatory government regulation on occupational safety and health in Malaysia and a self-regulatory electronics industry wide code of conduct that was a key outcome of external pressure on firms and is a key platform for continued pressure for improvements by civil society organisations (CSOs) and trade unions.In the final section, I concludethe paper by presenting the insights a governmentality perspective can bring to understanding the intra firm relations of GPN governance.
2.Methodology
This paper draws on findings from semi-structured interviews conducted during fieldwork for a larger PhD research project in 2008 and 2010. Respondents included a global manager on supply chain responsibility at HP, a corporate responsibility (CR) director at the headquarters of a large first tier supplier to HP located in Western Europe (HQsupplier), SHOs from five different manufacturing sites(MS A to E) in Penang that were suppliers to HP[1], Malaysian government officials, representatives from fourteen global and Malaysian CSOs,a Malaysian trade union, and an international trade union federation, and a private occupational health doctor and journalist in Penang.
Questions to the HP manager focused on the type of governance system the brand firm had in place for its suppliers, industry responses to governance challenges, and engagements with CSOs and governments. The interview with the CR director of HQsupplierprovided a detailed headquarter perspective of the challenges faced in implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) obligations internally and at manufacturing sites.The interviews with SHOsin Penang focused on what they considered were health and safety issues at the workplace, how they were governed, how external actors such as government agencies and CSOs affected their governance practices, and their thoughts on the efficacy, benefits and challenges of the governance measures they implemented.
Interviews with Malaysian government agencies in Penang aimed at understanding the level of regulatory oversight over health and safety,and their perception of health and safety risks in the electronics industry. The respondents included officials at the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) and National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and an occupational health doctor in the Ministry of Health.
Interviews with representatives from CSOsfrom Western Europe and the United States and an international trade union federation were members of the GoodElectronics Network (GEN). GEN is an international network of CSOs, trade unions, academics and individuals concerned with human rights, labour rights and environmental impacts related to the electronics industry. All respondents were actively engaged in or campaigning the electronics industry. The interviews focused on CSO campaigns andthe broader context of engagements with electronic firms, and the governance relations and challenges withinthe electronics industry. Respondents from non-firm,non-governmental actors in Malaysia included two CSOs(one was a GEN member), a representative from the Malaysian branch of an international trade union federation (a GEN member), a local union in Penang, and a labour activist that has worked for many years raising awareness of health risks of female workers in the electronics industry in Malaysia.All of the Malaysian respondents had worked on labour conditions in the electronics industryin the country since the 1980s. The occupational health doctor in Penang was working as a consultant on occupational health issues for several electronic firms, and thePenang journalistwas knowledgeable about the politics of industry and regulation in the local context.
3.Governmentality and governance ofglobal production networks
In the GPN literature, governance and power are key areas of research focus (Coe, 2011). According to Hess (2008), various concepts of power can be used to understand governance in GPNs. For example, GPN researchers have used the structural concept of ‘power over’ to understand the market and economic powers of lead firms and relational ‘power to’ with regards to collective powers of weaker agents and actors such as small and medium sized enterprises and CSOs (see Barrientos and Smith, 2007; Rutherford and Holmes, 2008). The use of the concept of power as a ‘technology’ from the governmentality literature, however, is less common, which may be due to the lack of analytical focus on what goes on inside a firm (Hess, 2008).
Power as ‘technology’ arises from the Foucauldian governmentality literature, which sees power as being immanent, organic, dispersed and net-like (Allen, 2003; Lukes, 1986). Foucault (1991) used the term ‘governmentality’ to describe a change in the art of government exercised by the state from one that focused on a ‘Machiavellian’ territorial rule of force and laws to a form preoccupied with bringing about desired changes to its population or society indirectly through the use of ‘techniques’. Techniques are used to direct the conduct of the population and its human subjects by making its social and economic properties known to the governor. Techniques not only make domains governable but are also in line with a particular rationale of government or governance (Foucault, 1991; Barry et al., 1996; Hindess, 1996). The contemporary study of governmentality techniques has focused on theirmanifestations within a neoliberal rationality of government. Under neoliberalism, while the state has slowly removed its involvement in the conduct of individuals’ livesa host of non-state authorities, organisational forms and techniques have arisen in its place to direct societal conduct (Barry et al., 1996; Hindess, 1996; Lemke, 2002; Rose, 1999). As Lemke (2002: 58) noted on neoliberalism:
“What we observe today is not a diminishment or reduction of state sovereignty and planning capacities but a displacement from formal to informal techniques of government and the appearance of new actors on the scene of government (e.g. nongovernmental organisations) that indicate fundamental transformations in statehood and a new relation between state and civil society actors”.
This change has given rise to a plethora of voluntary self regulatory CSR codes and standards in the private sector (Haufler, 2003, Kolk et al., 1999).
Neoliberal techniques are used to lead and control the conduct of individuals indirectly by making subjects responsible for their own governance through self-regulation. Thus individuals are made responsible for their own risks such as illness, unemployment, and poverty (Lemke, 2002). Techniquesof neoliberalism, in particular calculative techniques, such as indicators, standards, certifications, performance measures, benchmarks and the auditturn ‘the social’ into something that can be recorded, calculated and compared. As a result calculative techniques make domains visible and produce knowledge that make them governable (Higgins and Larner, 2010; Townley, 1998). They can turn complex societal conditions, such as labour conditions, into quantified and standardised conceptual and categorical forms that can be easily governed for example through ‘checklists’ (Blowfield and Dolan, 2008).
Since calculative techniques produce forms of visualisations and representation of results on paper they can be communicated across spaces and used to govern the conduct of others ‘at a distance’ by ‘centres of calculation’. ‘Centres of calculation’ is where information from the calculative techniques are sent to and accumulated. Those at these centres, for example manager’s offices, hold power from their capacities to make plans, calculations and strategies based on the information provided. They are considered to be “in the know” and as experts in what they seek to govern which provide them with legitimacy over their plans (Rose and Miller, 1992). Indeed, governing at a distance is what global firms do when implementing standards and codes across borders. Headquarters of firms therefore function as ‘centres of calculation’ for the manufacturing sites or suppliers they govern in distant locations.
The techniques of the financial accounting profession have been particularly accredited to making possible the ability to govern at a distance (Rose, 1999). Take the audit for example.Audits are performed to check that processes of information gathering and tracking are in place for a variety of management systems.According to Power (1997), audits provide information that produces comfort in the face of risks andits results are taken for granted. Audits are considered a ‘common sense’ approach that receive little scrutiny and question (Power, 1997; Dunn, 2007). “The power of the idea of audit and its ready exportability from the financial auditing context depends on a certain vagueness about its scope and meaning”(Power, 1997: 10). It is sufficiently vague enough to be applicable to a wide range of organisational contexts and is exportable for a variety of governance goals and objectives such as labour, ethical and environmental standards (Power, 1997). While many have documented the ineffectiveness of audits in capturing the true situation of worker conditions in factories, it continues to be a key tool in the implementation of labour standards by suppliers in GPNs (Barrientos and Smith, 2007; Hughes, 2009).
Larner and Walters (2004) see the use of governmentality with other research areas, such as GPNs, offering new insights and perspectives on the governance of international spaces. Standards, certification schemes and audits are key techniques used in the governance of GPNs for a variety of objectives such as quality standards, fair trade, and environmental and labour standards.The few GPN researchers that have used the governmentality perspective haveshown howvarious calculative techniques are key in governing at a distance which is critical for managing GPNs (see Blowfieldand Dolan,2008; Feakins, 2007; Higgins and Larner, 2010; Hughes et al., 2008; Hughes,2001; Hughes,2009; Larner and Le Heron, 2004; Ouma, 2010).Focusing on the technique of benchmarking, Larner and LeHeron (2004) show how it makes the ‘incommensurable’ such as regions, organisations and individuals ‘commensurable’ thereby creating global economic spaces and domains that are comparable and hence governable under the rationale of international competitiveness (214, 215).According to the authors the power of calculative techniques such as benchmarking is not on “how the numbers are produced ... [rather] how they travel and the work they do” across borders (219).
The use of the governmentality perspective is particularly useful for studies of health and safetygovernance given the increasing use of techniques that are self-responsibilisingand self-governing in workplaces. Much of the literature on health and safety and governmentality focuses on the micro-political or day to day level of decision making, discourse and strategies of managers (see Gray, 2009;MacEachen, 2000; MacEachen, 2005).By taking a similar approach in GPN research, the governmentality perspective can help us better understand howhealth and safety governance takes place within MNCs and across borders in global industries.
This research aims to show MNCs as ‘centres of calculation’ at their headquarter offices as they seek to govern their manufacturing sites located in other countries using a series of self-governing techniques such as standards and codes,benchmarking, and audits. These calculative techniques can turn complicated risks such as health and safety conditions of workers into manageable areas of governance for firms. An important group of actors that help facilitate the governing of the health and safety at a distance are the SHOs at the distant manufacturing site tasked with doing the governing. SHOs play a critical role as relays of information between manufacturing sites and firm headquarters (see Rose, 1999). Moreover, not only are SHOs governors over the health and safety of workers, theyare also governed by headquarters as they are subjected to the powers of self governing techniques and are disciplined by a governance rationale and discourse of a commitment from the top to a safe workplace that is also good for business.As noted by Gillies (2011) SHOs are not subjected to surveillance and direct forms of discipline but rather a subtle and insidious form of governance that results in these actors subjectifying themselves to a disciplined self-management or self-governance. This aspect of self-governance is a critical feature of governmentality.As noted by Foucault,the “successful government of others depends, in the first instance, on the capacity of those doing the governing to govern themselves. As for the governed, to the extent that it avoids the extremes of domination, their government must aim to affect their conduct - that is, it must operate through their capacity to regulate their own behaviour” (Foucault in Hindess, 1996: 105). A focus on SHOs provides a compelling perspective into how governance practices takes place in GPNs at the more micro level within firms.
4.Governing health and safety in the electronics industry
A.Firm headquarters as ‘centres of calculations’; Safety and Health Officers as the ‘governors’, the ‘governed,’ and ‘relays’ of information