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Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health (SCCOSH) and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) Records
MSS.2007.04.06
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Table of contents
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
SJSU Special Collections & Archives
Title: Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health (SCCOSH) and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) Records
creator:
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition
Identifier/Call Number: MSS.2007.04.06
Physical Description:
34 boxes
(34 linear feet)
Date (inclusive): 1946-2016
Abstract: This collection consists of administrative files, correspondence, research, publications, official reports, newspaper clippings,
photographs, notes, congressional testimony, and legislative material concerning these organizations and their mission to
reduce toxins and hazardous waste in the Silicon Valley.
The collection is open for research.
Copyright is assigned to the San José State University Special Collections & Archives. All requests for permission to publish
or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Director of Special Collections. Permission for publication
is given on behalf of the Special Collections & Archives. Copyright restrictions may apply to digital reproductions of the
original materials. Use of digital files is restricted to research and educational purposes.
Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health (SCCOSH) and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) Records, MSS-2007-04-06,
San José State University Library Special Collections & Archives.
The bulk of the arrangement and description work was completed by Josh Palmer, and edited and reviewed by Danelle Moon. The
rearrangement was completed by Alberta A. Jiminez and Robert Donahue, the EAD encoding was completed by Robert Donahue. Folders
were relabeled by Samira Habibi in September 2017.
The rearrangement and reappraisal was completed by Lale Yasemin Kaya and Nissa Nack (July-August 2015).
14 boxes of accruals were added, and the finding aid was updated and revised by Kate Steffens in August-October 2019.
The Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health (SCCOSH) grew from the efforts of three women's health and labor
rights organizers - Robin Baker, Amanda Hawes, and Pat Lamborn - who had come to focus on the Silicon Valley's largely unrepresented
working-class minorities in the late 1970s. The three met sometime in 1977 at the Pacific Studies Center in Mountain View,
where a small group had been meeting intermittently to discuss occupational health. Not long after, Baker, Hawes, and Lamborn
together applied for and received a workers training grant from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA),
which they used to fund the Project on Health and Safety in Electronics (PHASE, 1978-1980).
During the three years covered by the initial federal grant, PHASE produced a series of occupational hazards factsheets for
electronics workers (See Series III). First introduced in 1979, the program also included a multilingual telephone consultation
service for electronics workers. While not a program to organize workers, PHASE efforts to raise awareness of occupational
hazards resulted in open conflict with many Silicon Valley electronics companies. In 1979 the three women established a sister
group to PHASE, the Electronics Committee on Safety and Health (ECOSH), to undertake more direct worker organizing while PHASE
remained focused on voluntary educational programming. SCCOSH became the overarching agency for these two groups, PHASE and
ECOSH, formally established on July 19, 1979, with a five-member Governing Board of Robyn Baker, Amanda Hawes, Pat Lamborn,
Mark Fee, and Andy Rowland. SCCOSH expanded its governing board to seven members in 1980, and again to nine members in 1981.
In April of 1979, PHASE employees began staffing an "Electronics Hazard" telephone hotline for workers concerned about chemicals
encountered in the workplace. In addition to chemicals encountered in industrial occupations, SCCOSH outreach addressed potential
health hazards for office laborers, including the combined psychological and physiological effects of working for long periods
at video display terminals (VDTs, or computer monitors).
The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) developed from a SCCOSH project into a wide-ranging, independent nonprofit organization.
Ted Smith (1945-), attorney and activist founded the SVTC in 1982 in response to the suspicion that leaks at manufacturing
sites for IBM and Fairchild Electronics were causing health issues in nearby Silicon Valley homes. The SVTC is a San José,
California-based research and advocacy group that promotes safe environmental practices in the high tech industry. SVTC is
composed of high tech workers, community members, law enforcement, emergency workers and environmentalists. They aim to educate
the masses on best practices for computer recycling and promote corporate social responsibility on subjects ranging from nanotechnology,
solar, and consumer e-waste.
Smith is currently the Senior Strategist of SVTC, and is co-founder and coordinator of the International Campaign for Responsible
Technology (ICRT), and international network committed to the development of sustainable and non-polluting technologies. He
also serves as the steering committee chair of the Computer TakeBack Campaign, an organization focused on promoting life-cycle
producer responsibility in high-tech electronics. He co-edited the book
Challenging The Chip: Labor Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global Electronics Industry (2006). Smith has been recognized by the Dalai Lama for his environmental leadership. (See Series IX)
Glenna Matthews Oral History Collection, MSS 2010-05-11, San José State University Special Collections and Archives, http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt8k40382g/
Scope and Content of Collection
The Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health (SCCOSH) and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) Records, 1946-2016,
document the history of SCCOSH and SVTC. The Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health (SCCOSH) grew from the
efforts of three women's health and labor rights organizers - Robin Baker, Amanda Hawes, and Pat Lamborn. SCCOSH organized
various campaigns in the fields of worker's rights advocacy and occupational safety and health training, particularly within
the region's electronics industries. At the group's outset, SCCOSH envisioned itself as representing three constituencies:
local labor unions and labor councils, ill and injured workers, and community residents affected by wildfire industrial development
of the Santa Clara Valley since the mid-1970s. The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) developed from a SCCOSH project
into a wide-ranging, independent nonprofit organization. Founded by Ted Smith (1945-), attorney and activist, in 1982 in response
to the suspicion that leaks at manufacturing sites for IBM and Fairchild Electronics were causing health issues in nearby
Silicon Valley homes. The SVTC is a San José, California-based research and advocacy group that promotes safe environmental
practices in the high tech industry.
The records consist of administrative files, correspondence, research, publications, official reports, newspaper clippings,
photographs, notes, congressional testimony, and legislative material concerning these organizations and their mission to
reduce toxins and hazardous waste in the Silicon Valley.
This collection is arranged into 18 series: Series I: SCCOSH, Activism, 1976-2008; Series II: SCCOSH, Workplace Hazard Files,
1978-1999; Series III: SCCOSH, Administrative Files, 1978-2002; Series IV: SCCOSH, Legal Cases, 1980-1998; Series V: SVTC,
Model Hazardous Materials Storage, 1981-1986; Series VI: SVTC, Groundwater Cleanup, 1978-1997; Series VII: SVTC, Toxic Gas
Model Ordinance, 1982-1997; Series VIII: SVTC, Administrative Files, 1982-2008; Series IX: SVTC, Founder Ted Smith, 1981-2008;
Series X: SVTC, United Technologies Corporation, 1984-1995; Series XI: SVTC, Toxics Coordinating Project, 1985-1990; Series
XII: SVTC, Tanner Bill, 1986-1991; Series XIII: SVTC, Stanford University/Biotechnology Activism, 1987-1991; Series XIV: SVTC,
Earth Day, 1987-1993; Series XV: Press, 1976-2011, Series XVI: SVTC History, 1981-2008; Series XVII: ETBC/CTBC, 1995-2010;
and Series XVIII: Research Materials, 1946, 1961-2016.
About us. (n.d.). Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. Retrieved from http://www.svtc.org/site/PageServer?pagename=svtc_about_us
Interview with Ted Smith. (n.d.). Temple University Press. Retrieved from http://www.temple.edu/tempress/authors/1788_qa.html
Santa Clara Center for Occupational Health (SCCOSH) and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) Records, 1978-2002 (bulk 1982-1995), MSS-2007-04-06, San José State University Special Collections & Archives.
Smith, Ted, David A. Sonnenfeld, and David Naguib Pellow, editors.
Challenging the Chip: Labor Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global Electronic Industry. Temple University Press, 2006.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Industrial safety -- Santa Clara County (Calif.)
Industrial hygiene -- Santa Clara County (Calif.)
Employee rights -- Santa Clara County (Calif.)
Environmental justice -- Santa Clara County (Calif.)
Electronic industry workers -- Health and hygiene -- Santa Clara County (Calif.)
Toxins
Groundwater Pollution
Semiconductor industry
Persistent pollutants
Smith, Ted